


Beneath the Green and Hollow Hill

by Zimraphel



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drama in Nargothrond, Finduilas and Celebrimbor invent bouldering, Fëanorian hair lust, Girdle horror, How Celebrimbor Came To Love Magical And Slightly Discomfiting Blondes, M/M, a very slow burn, also literally things burning, oh no, passive aggressive use of Sindarin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29297538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zimraphel/pseuds/Zimraphel
Summary: 'Celebrimbor (silverfisted) was the son of Curufin, but though inheriting his skills he was an Elf of wholly different temper. During their dwelling in Nargothrond as refugees he had grown to love Finrod…'(HoME XII; Part 2; Late Writings; Of Men and Dwarves; Note 7)
Relationships: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Finrod Felagund | Findaráto
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: 2021 My Slashy Valentine





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peachBitch1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachBitch1/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many thanks to SkyEventide for beta'ing, paragraph-bombed many times over, without whose help I probably wouldn't have gotten this far to start with! 
> 
> To my MSV recipient: I got carried away a little by this story, and so can see it is not quite done! But it will be soon enough.
> 
> -
> 
> Names: I am using mostly Quenya names for most of this fic because it is from the perspective of a Fëanorian, and I find it unlikely they switched except perhaps in diplomatic communication. Maedhros doesn't strike me as very impressed by Thingol's claims of kingship over Beleriand, or his opinion on Quenya; Curufin probably even less so.

He did not remember the Light, though it shone still in his eyes.

The light Tyelperinquar did remember was diffuse and often tinged with grey. The silvery skies above Himlad were ever-shifting, clouds chasing each other in relentless pursuit while herds of wild horses followed their play on the plain beneath it. Never did the land of his youth seem at rest, with the wild wind rolling through the grass, his uncle running and riding beside him, silver hair all agleam.

They had kept herds of strong, thick-coated cattle there, great aurochs Maitimo had brought from Himring’s ever-cold highlands, well-adapted to winter snows. Berries appeared in summer, glossy and poisonous, and red foxes went white during Morgoth’s harsh winters. Birds of passage left their plains early every year. Everything he knew there was white, silver and green, and moving. Only down in the forges beneath the keep, where it was dark and often stifling hot, did he sometimes imagine the glow of Laurelin looking deep into the heart of fire.

Some nights he would spend helping his father decipher the smudged and scattered notes left behind by his grandfather, a slow labour of love often in need of translation keys and little mirrors. It was derivative work, but standing in that shadow still felt like staring at the sun. Often his uncles would come by, and he’d see their dark and fiery heads bending over the book, or holding it up to the light like a holy relic. Often Maitimo would look to the North, the insistent rhythm he tapped out on the stone as he thought the only sign of life. Makalaurë on the other hand would hum searching, hesitant tunes like a bird singing in its sleep, fingers beneath his chin, eyes to the floor. But his father—his father would suddenly sit up with a start, and hurry to the forge.

His father was a master-smith, but it was hardly all he mastered. Everything he touched became beautiful, like flowers opening to the touch of Vána. Tyelperinquar was always peeking over his shoulder, trying to see how he did it, but never seemed to catch him in the act—a mess of swirling lines on paper coalesced and showed sudden harmony from one moment to the other-- with no in-between. Curufinwë would look at him over his shoulder, amusement glinting in his eyes as he sensed his frustration. Sometimes he would smooth his hair as if he thought him a babe still, out of habit.

“Dear child,” he would murmur in a low voice, “there is no trick to it, only time and attention. These so-called ‘masters of drawing’-” –and Tyelpë would flush, knowing his secret pile of books was not so secret after all “-would only teach cheap tricks, and lead you to replace observation with imitation. You are of Fëanáro’s blood. Are you not willing to create something that is wholly new, wholly yours?”

And he would nod, thinking all the while that he’d rather make something _good_ , and thinking of the book. But Curufinwë kept all his clumsy designs, and only corrected if he deemed his attempts actively endangered the forge. The books he did give him to read were instructive only on technique, never defined beauty or showed him how to reach for it. Sometimes he thought his father did not understand how much he had forgotten of Valinor. How could he create beauty when he had never truly seen it, only its pale and restless echo? Were they not deciphering the book even now?

But Curufinwë would only smile, and turn back to his own work. And so Tyelperinquar would continue to putter away at his corner table, beneath the steady blue glow of the lamps, until blue faded into a tentative yellow with the rising of the Sun.

-

There were nights when they rode fast through the dark to Himring for Maitimo’s wild feasts, where the fires leapt high and refinement was given as little weight as it had been given importance in Tirion. The winters were long, but the great hall was full of bright tapestries and great hounds, gifts from Tyelkormo and Carnistir. His uncles and all their men would kick their legs and stomp their booted feet, half-crouching, clapping and shouting in ever faster circles until the last of them had fallen over, out of breath and full of mirth, jumping over swords they swung beneath each other’s feet. Maitimo was always the last to fall, while Makalaure did not truly take part and instead spun in the centre, bright red embroidered silk amid the captains’ austere black, spurring them all on with grisly battle songs that praised their bravery.

Sometimes Tyelkormo would take him camping and find new wildflowers for him to study the shapes of. They would lie down on the hard, cold ground and gaze at the stars as they wheeled through the wide skies above them, quietly tracing their light and musing on how they had come to be–except for the time when Tyelkormo snatched a bat right out of the air with an indignant squeak to show him its tiny, razor-sharp teeth. In a voice pitched so high Tyelperinquar could scarily hear it his uncle sang something to it through the cage of his fingers, and saw its frantic movement stilling slowly as he opened them. Then it lay blinking up at them with large dark eyes, soft like a newborn pup. Tyelperinquar had unfolded its velvety wings with wonder, and pondered what thoughts a bat must think to allow this foreign touch.

And so the years slipped by. Whatever else happened during their long wandering over the empty plains of Lothlann, he’d always fall asleep again to the sound of his uncle speaking in languages he could not translate, a low hum blending into the night until it felt like hearing the world holding a conversation with itself, a voice no more substantial than wind through rushes.

And he never could do the same, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. The song of the world seemed as closed off to him as the Sea now was, responding only with stubborn muteness to his calls. They were similar in this, despite it all their differences, his dark father and his silver uncle, with their complete, unwarranted trust in his abilities, despite never doing anything to justify it save for being born among them—saying no I will not teach you tricks, saying simply listen and respond. But one day, after he’d torn half his robe to shreds in trying to free himself of a bramble bush he was caught in on diving after a rabbit utterly uninterested in the strange sounds he was making-- Tyelkormo at last spoke of it. “Fëanáro never completed his study of Valarin. Do not ask your father of it; he cannot bear to hear him judged incapable of anything. And he in turn,” he continued with a mischievous expression on his face “despite all his notes never managed to tease anything like a grammatical structure out of a fox. Of course, Huan could have told him not to bother, there _is_ none—if he spoke hound, that is. Or spoke to me about it! But he likes sharing his own failures even less he likes seeing those of Fëanáro. None of us hear the same song. The world is fairer for it; do not strain yourself so, and let it come. It will not come if you don’t let it. Do you think my gift was expected and easily recognised, or took a form welcomed by one who grew up in a forge?” 

He’d replied with nothing but an unbelieving snort, finding it hard to imagine his father truly not being able to do anything he set his mind to, or his uncle’s gifts unrecognized as great, Oromë’s own as he had been. But when he at last fell asleep that night with the cold restless wind on his face he did not dream of chasing after shadows of Light unseen.

-

Summer came again, sooner than he thought it would, bringing with it many hardy flowers. Himlad’s plains were covered by strange purple-blue thistles near the banks of the Celon, swallows swooping low. And one day ranging carelessly with Huan when he felt like he had never been weighed down by anything heavier than the breeze Tyelpë looked at sharp leaves--and felt for the first time like he could see another shape lurking already perfected beneath their form. He raced back to the forge, only half-hearing his uncle’s laughter, saying it was like Curvo twice.

His father looked over _his_ shoulder that day, and when he looked back at him, he smiled.

-

Barbed hepatizon thistles twined on stalks of verdigris from where he hung them above his workbench as a reminder ever after, though he soon made many things more delicate and advanced in form. But the North wind played a merry tune on his thistle-chimes, still open-ended and inviting.

Many years passed without notice beneath shifting skies until the wind changed. 

* * *

When the sky was set on fire he forgot all forge-thoughts of Laurelin.

Men and women ran and crawled into the keep as fast as they could, hair scorched, clothes burnt to shreds. He heard his uncle shouting commands, and saw his father only in flashes, appearing and disappearing in the crowd.

“Tyelpë!” a voice came from his left, and before he knew it he was set to the task of healing. He did not have much experience with it, nothing but his uncle’s lessons, and all of those practiced only on Himlad’s animals. The fox-cub that lived beneath his bed the winter after it was rescued from summer's wildfires was but a poor way to prepare. But Tyelperinquar had hardly ever killed, and for that reason he was set to Singing, unlovely though his voice might be. The singed air stung his throat, screams and groans competing with his voice. A small hand uncurled within his as his voice faltered with smoke. Unwise, unwise to have children during a war. But older, stronger hands lost their grips all the same, and though ancient Arimaitë cleared Tyelkormo’s extensive stores of herbs and ointments, stocked up for long years –few brought into the healer’s ward that day walked out again.

“Please…” a voice from a face so blackened he could scarcely recognise it croaked, and then he wished he had not recognised it. He swallowed and tried to sing, but bile kept coming up. And so he sat there at the edge of the cot, swallowing uselessly while the healer was a frantic blur at his cousin’s side. Yellow strands still glinted on the red, nearly bare skull, and iron-strong hands clenched his wrists as though he meant to drag him down with him to wherever the Light that sped from his eyes was going. The glow of the torches glinted on the rayed sun on his breast, then stilled.

Just when he thought his lungs were too scorched to allow for anything but shallow breaths ever again his father came and pulled him away.

Over his shoulder Arimaitë’s face, wiped clear of hope and grief both, became smaller and smaller. Her fists clenched stark white around bundles of herbs, unwilling to abandon anyone. Then smoke enveloped all he had known.

-

Soon everything became a blur, and then a flash of cool silver—and then the last thing he knew for a while were hissed curses, the dark leather of his uncle’s gambeson, the grey horse moving beneath and Huan’s swift white leaping beside them, following the rivers where they could.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Sheer were the precipices of Ered Gorgoroth, and beneath their feet were shadows that were laid before the rising of the Moon. Beyond lay the wilderness of Dungortheb, where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian came together, and horror and madness walked. 
> 
> There spiders of the fell race of Ungoliant abode, spinning their unseen webs in which all living things were snared; and monsters wandered there that were born in the long dark before the Sun, hunting silently with many eyes. No food for Elves or Men was there in that haunted land, but death only.' 
> 
> \- The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien.

When he woke once more they had stopped. Cold earth beneath him, his uncle at his side, humming to the fire. The white of Tyelkormo’s eyes was red, his silver gaze so intent he would not have bothered him even if he had the power to do so. Whether he was willing the fire to burn brighter or trying to forget the fires that had burned them was unclear. The night pressed down on them like a living thing, all sound strangely muffled. The air was not neither hot nor smoky now, yet felt almost too thick to draw into his lungs, like breathing water. A wolf pelt was wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and he struggled out of it in a panic, feeling trapped, reaching for water to mask his reaction.

“Unlight.” 

His father’s voice startled the flask straight out of hands. Curufinwë’s hair blended into the night like a raven’s wing; with his face turned away nothing was visible of him at all. His gambeson was black, or so darkened with smoke not even the bright embroideries of Fëanáro’s House stood out on it anymore. He felt that if he reached out to touch him his hand would go right through, feeling for nothing but spoken night.

He looked down at his trembling hands, pink only where he had spilled water on them. There were red flakes of what he thought in some numb way must have been Angrod on them. He remembered the red hands exposed almost to the bone, strong with the grip of despair, the metallic rays of the yellow sun the only thing to remember brightness by. The taste of bile again strong in his mouth, he could not be bothered to take up the flask, and watched it drain into the ground. His uncle broke his fire-vigil with a hiss to grab it.

“Careful, Tyelpë. To drink from Ered Gorgoroth’s poisoned springs would suit you ill.” The voice came out in a hoarse rasp, and did not carry. The ring of light around the fire seemed smaller than it should have been; Tyelpërinquar could only make out glints of armor and the far-away neigh of a horse beyond it with difficulty. Though he saw no wounds on his arms, each small movement hurt as if the fire touched him there and everywhere still.

Ered Gorgoroth. Which meant-“We crossed the Fords of Aros four days ago, and rode through the Silent Country as quickly as we could. The Iant Iaur is only just behind us now, or what is left of it.” His father’s voice came again from his left, though he could hardly see him. “I did not wake you. The Moriñgotto’s foul smoke had sunk deep into your lungs.”  
  
He did not reply. There was no trace of distress in his father’s voice, still smooth as ever, but then there wouldn’t be. As long as Tyelperinquar was there he would never show it for his sake, and perhaps by the time he had left he would have forgotten how to do so. Sometimes, back in Himlad when he had thought himself quite grown, he had wished to be trusted enough to be taken into his father’s confidence during long dour war councils. For now, in this dark night, he was grateful still not to be included after all these years.  
  
Huan nuzzled his hand in a gesture of comfort and he petted him in thanks, though the pressure hurt his tender skin. The hound’s luminous fur seemed to be the only thing unaffected by the darkness pressing down on them, darting restlessly between the three of them like a beam of pure moonlight.

  
A guard stepped suddenly out of the dark. “The horses are cannot be trusted to bear us any further, my lord.” his gaze shifted to Tyelkormo. “Perchance if my lord Turkafinwë-"

  
“No.”

  
“No?” came his father’s voice from somewhere the left.  
  
“No, Curvo. I am afraid there is no language in which Unlight can be called anything that would calm these animals, and they are not so easily fooled as that. Leave the carthorses, but dismount.” His hand twined through Huan’s thick fur as if searching for something to hold onto, patting soft coat Tyelperinquar knew his uncle’s own over-tunics to be spun from also. “We will have to lead them, and be grateful if we come out of this dreadful valley again without great loss.”

  
His father sighed. “I will order the guards to put the tack with the bells on the horses. Ridiculous as _certain_ people may find it, at least we might be able to hear them wandering off. And I want none of your men hanging warg’s heads from their saddles either. I know you like to think it shows your prowess, but our steeds have seen quite enough of the Glamhoth for now, one might think.”

  
  
“Very well, my lord.” The guard stepped out of the light again, swallowed by the night.

* * *

When he next awoke it was because the cart he had been resting in had jolted to a sudden stop. It took him a while to realise his eyes were open, the night darker than any except those few terrible ones before they crossed the Sea. He rubbed his throbbing head, and risked a peek through the curtain.

“Eratáro? Anything amiss?”

No answer came from the driver, one of the few of Maitimo’s men to have been with them when Aglon burned. For a time the only sound came from behind him where the other wounded slept steadily on, moaning faintly in their sleep.

Then there was a far-away tinkling of silver bells, and faint cursing much nearer, followed by harsh breathing. It all carried strange, muffled echo, as if the sound itself was uncertain of where it came from. The rain hung like a veil over the night, and cut off what little sight Unlight might have allowed for from where he sat. After calling out a few times more without answer he climbed to the empty driver’s seat, where a blue lamp his father attached to the cart hung still. Though it only seemed to make the surrounding night harder to pierce with its blaze so close by, it felt—safer, somehow. He knew very well that the Moriñgotto carried off those selfsame lamps to the mines where many thralls delved, but clung to its steady blaze even so. Only a faintly blue-grey slice of the old Dwarven Road was visible beneath the wheels of the cart, and for a time nothing seemed to move. Tyelperinquar cast one last look at the sleeping forms behind him. Then he took the lamp from its holder and stepped out.

At least part of the problem with the cart immediately became obvious, though not the cause for its abandonment. The moment his feet touched down they were rooted to the spot; dark, rain-heavy mud sucked greedily at his boots, and in trying to step forward he nearly fell over. Humming a low note, he slowly imagined every limb anew, casting his mind like a silver net about his form, drawing it in. It took much longer than he should, but eventually all of him seemed—suffused. Aware; no longer mere flesh. The boots slowly came loose, the pull of the ground quite forgotten. He took hesitant a hesitant step forward, into the dark, then another.  
  
The lamp was not of much help. It felt strangely tempting to cast it down, in the mud, where the useless thing belonged.

The horses seemed to have broken free, tearing straight through sturdy leather with the strength of panic. Their tack was still partly attached to the cart; it felt ragged and oddly slick in his hands. He could only feel his way along the damp leather, the lamp showing what was near his face and no more, the other hand resting uneasily on the pommel of his sword. He feared there was some awful beast nearby, and dared not call out any longer.

But up ahead--

“Hail!” he called with some relief, for there was a figure there sitting half-upright. It was Eratáro, he was sure; the distinct copper gleam of uncle’s star glinted at him from afar, reflecting blue. But no answer came.

Only slowly did he understand what he was seeing; bent over, run through by his own sword still standing up in the mud like an accusing finger grown from the earth itself, the man slumped immobile, gasping for breath. He could not speak; blood bubbled from his mouth at the attempt. His mind opened easily to Tyelperinquar’s hesitant touch; and in it a confusion of ghostly sailors drifted out the dark, their faces menacing and merging with the dark, with silver hair spun from ghastly spider webs. He had defended them all as he went down in so dark a Sea, loyal to the last. The old soldier’s mind went dark while he was in it, and a dreadful cold clenched its fists about his thoughts in hasty withdrawal.

He closed his eyes, breathing fast. There were no vengeful sailors waiting for him, and never would be; but this then was the terror of Nan Dungortheb, and all of them had more than enough of guilt for it to feed on.

The palantír lay in the mud before him, reflecting the far flames hid behind mountains. He quickly bent to pick it up and hid it beneath his cloak, from himself as much as anyone. In doing so he found the horses at last, or what little of them remained. There were great bites taken out of them, their bodies cast aside like half-eaten apples, threads of silver-grey strung carelessly about their legs. But worse than any horror were the great hewn wounds that separated limb from limb, made so clearly by a sure-handed swordsman.

He turned back to the cart with heavy heart, the mud clinging despite his spells. The others still slept on; some would perhaps not wake again. The muddy palantír settled back inside, he considered his options.

-

The cart had to have been one of the last one in their train; Tyelperinquar was often trusted with guarding the rear, as he had neither the inclination nor the desire to lead the charge, and some remaining power left for healing Songs. It was a decent position for their leader’s son to practice his skills without immediately being exposed to great harm, while still shouldering true responsibility. He had fulfilled his duties faithfully ever since his father had first given them to him at his majority, and did not intend to disappoint now. But it seemed like they had been left behind, the screams of the horses muffled enough by Unlight and distance to be lost on the others. There was nothing for it but to follow the road on his own, and find them again.

But the ancient stones of the Dwarven Road here were more than weathered, seemed almost smashed with vicious hammers, half-buried in the mud. Though he tried to keep his eyes on it despite the awful, eager chittering that tried to distract him from his purpose—he still eventually found himself without a road to follow. The dim blue lamp lit only mud, and more mud, and the pouring curtain of cold stinging rain before and behind.

He tried to walk in a straight line, but the only thing he could see besides the mud was the grim outline of the Ered Gorgoroth. Toothed black peaks were silhouetted like a dark crown by the wall of fire beyond it, all of the sky consumed by red without casting any light on the plane below. Though he was sure he was simply going forward and not taking some odd turn to the right they seemed ever nearer. No matter how many times he sped up to walk away from them, they always came closer still; and there were many strange things moving in the dark he could not see, ominous chittering and scuttling in some unseen hideous growth. The ground was soft with stinking mud, and he felt his hair stick to his head by stringy spider webs. The dark fires that consumed the forests behind the mountains hovered like an afterimage over his eyes, and so further veiled anything he might have seen before him. He could only stumble forward feeling his way through, and thorny branches soon re-opened all-too recent wounds. He was bleeding and exhausted by the time he finally saw some light, and though it was as red as the fires he tried to avoid, he turned to it without regret.

But it couldn’t be.

The guardian of the lost domain did not see him now, or not yet. What remained of Aegnor sharp-flame, famed for his wrathful spirit even in peacetime, was caught in a column of fire, blue with heat at its heart where his eyes blazed, fixedly staring North as he had ever done. Nothing could have persuaded him to turn his gaze away from his enemy while those he loved yet lived, and now it seemed that very determination had been his own Doom. Honour or duty perhaps had barred his way over the Sea until it was too late; and iron shackles scratched with evil runes now bound him here. Or perhaps it was some stranger fate that had led him to linger overlong without Namo's protection; a flickering light bounded around that awful column, unseen by staring eyes. Pale white, invisible and not, with a sound like beating wings and the strong smell of something singed, almost overpowering the stench of an elvish spirit caught by the Enemy and bound to a Will other than his own.  
  
All this Tyelperinquar realised only later, for at this time he was frozen by simple terror; to be faced with what could become of an Elf even after death was no joy in any circumstance, and certainly not one gladly faced apparently alone so near Ered Gorgoroth. He dared not draw breath, though the column seemed fixed and unmoving, knowing not with what eyes a spirit might see, what it now might watch for, or what might cause it to move. He thought with regret of the little spell he said to raise his boots above the mud and spread the grasp of his thought more fully through his form, wondering what sort of eyes he had drawn in exchange for such a futile and short-lived comfort. Exhaustion settled deep into his bones. Those dreadful mountains seemed wholly impervious to whichever way he would move his feet, and it was only by chance that terror outraced despair. With a rising panic that had little to do with the nebulous, guessed-at shapes of the weavers of Unlight hiding in invisible trees, or even with far-off cousins forever lost to a necromancer’s charms-- and more with feeling utterly, _utterly_ alone he stumbled backwards, not at all quietly, until his feet caught on his cape and he landed flat on his back in the stinking mud. The pommel of his sword pressed coldly into his back, and he felt pathetic tears prick his eyes.

He began crawling away from the column of flame on his back, noisily shuffling away from it in the least effective way possible, his back chafing with rubble and worse. What he had taken for twigs revealed themselves as dry bones, snapping beneath his hands, rings catching on long straight hair as he lifted his fingers in horror.  
  
All he knew was to keep moving away, away, to make the mountains smaller. His lamp long gone, forgotten somewhere in the mud, nothing but blind panic remaining.

There were bonds about his wrists. He could not see anything but—something strong as iron clasped his wrists, growing tight and glowing with heat. His breathing came shallow and high in his chest, drawing in the smoke they fled, though no fires followed now. There was the smell of something singed, something like the meat left over-long above a campfires when Huan asked for too much of his attention and—eyes lit up the dark, showing a battered, soot-stained face. “Please…” it said. The yellow sun of Arfin winked at him from the shattered breastplate. He stumbled to his feet.

“No!” he shouted and on instinct—“ _Angrod_! Please!” The bonds flared with heat, then loosened. He had—he had spoken to—he had to go. Cold fear of a new kind settled deeply within his chest. To speak to the dead was to invite them, and if—

He had to go.

He ran blindly into the dark, crying as he went. But there was light up ahead, a soft green gleam amid a sea of black. Verdurous foliage beckoned him, and he found himself upon a winding mossy path, suddenly exhaustion setting in once more as panic faded. Leaden-eyed, he walked into a copse of beechen-green, the wind a soft push at the small of his back. Slowly, the sweet scent of rot faded into a honeyed flowery one, drawing him ever deeper. There were many strange birds hidden in these trees, though they retreated every time he turned. The peculiar green light cast their shadows oddly large, and all the air was filled with song of many nightingales lifting as one. Hemlock reached up to his waist here, and he felt that if only he laid down among it he would know peace forever more. Still, the memory of fire drove him on.

As he walked the stars seemed to wheel back and forth, swaying like reeds in a summer breeze, though no moonlight touched the trees. The very air at times seemed thicker, though not unpleasantly so, and he could hear water falling. Strange scaled claws scuttled up the branches just out of sight, and many eyes lit up between the boughs—or were those the stars, closer now, glaring down with wicked intent? His shoulders hunched beneath Varda’s wrathful gaze, shuddering with guilty memories.  
  
But here the ground was soft and mossy, unexpectedly pliant beneath his feet. The trees grew further and further apart, until they arched around a clearing like the ribs of some impossible beast. The very air seemed the breath of some great being, ebbing and returning to the meadow like the Sea. He walked hesitantly towards the sound of water, and could not say how long he had been walking. A white doe with red ears looked up from where it was drinking from the stream. Or one of its heads did. Placidly the other continued to lap at the water while strange red eyes looked into Tyelperinquar's own unperturbed. There was red seregon growing from its velvety antlers. There were things forgotten. And he felt he had no desire in the world but to follow it wherever it desired to go, so sure that everything he could not remember now would be found again. He could smell it now; an intoxicating mixture of deep flowers and animal musk. Red flowers sprang up at its hooves where it walked like drops of precious blood, and its eyes flashed with gold as it led him further along.

The path flashed white beneath his feet, winding like a snake through bright grass. At last he came to what appeared to be a strange shrine, covered in tattered shrouds. The doe stopped. There were many fresh dark flowers strewn on the floor, and cuts of meat, fresher still. The air was full of humming, vibrating with delight. And the doe, the doe. He rubbed his eyes as her two heads swayed uncertainly into one before his eyes, but not quite, flickering like a mirage unable to settle on its final form. It stood on two legs now, its snout slowly receding. A white hand came to cup his cheek and red lips touched his own. The song of water and of the nightingales was nearly deafening, and he could not help swaying with it. Was this the way of it? He could not remember what he had fled. She smiled. Her light was older than the world, teeth were twinned and grooved like those of a doe. Her lashes long, her eyes were wholly black. There was an arrow in her neck.

Huan landed on his chest to hold him down as he kicked and screamed, sprayed with blood and worse. Tyelkormo cursed as he pulled his arrow out, silver flash of a knife, felling.

There were dead leaves beneath his head. A wan sun hung above it. The trees were winter-bare and cold with frost. Sweet scent of rotting meat and faint flowers drifting above, gifts from some strange people whose names were lost to long Ages.

“False beauty kept us captive across the Sea, you fool!” his uncle bellowed as he hiccupped out his tale, reduced to an incoherence he had not known for years. And Tyelperinquar kept crying forgive me, forgive, forgive, not so sure of whom he was asking this, feeling both more and less than ever like a child again. His thought was that if death should come he should still prefer for it to wear fair form. But he did not say it.

By the time they reached the road again he could believe the darkness a comfort, and the tightness of his father’s grip around his still-pained shoulders something he could hold onto in turn.

Huan did not leave his side until they waded through the Mindeb and into Dimbar.

* * *

They lost four men to the darkness, and ten to the light. One they found again, but could not save, stumbling out of Neldoreth white-haired and nude, stick-thin, the grooves of many years edged into his face like a mortal Man’s. He babbled about nightingales and starlight, nightingales and starlight—some half-imagined memory of love. He sat down at the edge of the bare winter trees and refused to move, his feet blue with cold, humming a sad old song.

That was the last they saw of him.

Another they found half-turned into a tree, her eyes still blinking from between beechen-green. The others they never found at all, only strange tracks of dragging from the trees, gargantuan feathers the shade of dusk in their wake. Huan yearned for a hunt he was not allowed to go on, still pulling spider-silk from his teeth, haunted by a memory of Song.

* * *

And Curufinwë who had long sought him in the dark had drunk from the poisoned stream of Ered Gorgoroth, filled with shadows of madness and despair.

But for a while the Oath held them at bay, for it needed no hope to feed on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> '[The] thin waters that spilled from Ered Gorgoroth were defiled, and perilous to drink, for the hearts of those that tasted them were filled with shadows of madness and despair.' The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 14, Of Beleriand and Its Realms


	3. Chapter 3

Smoke rose from the Crissaegrim, and the Sirion carried blood. No rest would they find here, and heavy exhaustion settled like a cloud over their harried lot. But Curufinwë smiled, a strange light taking hold in his eyes.

He turned to his brother, and spoke with grim resolve. “These ill tidings may yet smile upon us. No beggars shall we come to Felagund’s door.”

“Indeed.” Said Tyelkormo, and turned to the archers on their steeds, raising his sword and their blood. “Are we not the bravest of the Noldor? Captains of the North! For many long years your spears stood like a proud forest of tall young trees at the gate of darkness, unbowed by vile winds, your arrows an unceasing rain upon his crooked shoulders! Did you not drive the craven Moriñgotto to tremble like a lowly beast in his warren? Hear me now, oh House of Fëanáro! No shame shall fall upon you. What petty Kings gathered in riches we paid for in blood, on the empty plains of Lothlann, in the cold hills of Himring. Even in our flight we did not find our ruin, bowed before no master. Dragon-fire may delay us, but let the Oath yet be fulfilled! What was lost can be rebuilt; skilled of hand and eye as you are, ever inventive; not for the first time do you now journey light. Now let us save this Telerin princeling and arrive at Nargothrond clothed not in gold but victory!”

A great cry rose up from the host like the voice of the sea, and soon Tyelkormo was shouting orders with Curufinwë at his side, regrouping and speaking in low voices with those of the Northern Þindar who had seen these woods before.

The wounded hidden safely in the woods with the healers to tend them, Tyelkormo rallied the cavalry into a fury that left all the fresh horrors of Nan Dun for now cast aside. The jaws of the iron wargs’ heads that hung from his captains’ saddles snapped loudly with every stride of their proud horses, until with the sound of countless hooves clattering on stone they sounded like the voice of thunder itself rolling through the hills. Diffuse light rose up from the host as it plunged forward with terrible vigorous wrath, the great choirs of the Singers calling up the stones and the bloody river to rise up against the ones that dared to defile them, daring even to call to the very air. No answer was heard from it, but the shadow of a great wings moved over the flickering wasteland where no bird was seen.

But Curufinwë and Tyelperinquar rode away with a force of mounted archers to the west, up a hidden mountain pass that led to the misty lakes of Mithrim, and soon lost sight of what would become of the battle. Silent as twin shadows they stole over secret mountain paths even with their horses, until they came at last to a grey cave hidden behind a sheet of moss and vines. A few guards were left to stand before it, and then at last they discarded secrecy and stormed down the side of the mountain, descending like a sudden cloud on the enemy from the side.

The carnage was terrible, and many times Tyelperinquar’s horse almost stumbled over the bodies of friends or enemies unrecognizable in the mire. He Sung, but with every blow deflected and returned found his power to affect the world around him waning, his arms aching beneath their armour. Tyelkormo’s forces had been greatly outnumbered; this they had known from the start.

  
Still the tide was briefly turning, and many strange and horrible creatures fell beneath unexpected arrows. Still countless unfamiliar horrors were still unleashed upon them like unremitting waves in a stormy sea. At last he heard the great call of one of Oromë’s own boar-headed horns, and knew their task fulfilled. The tower, then, could not be saved. Still, this lack of victory was no true defeat, for a bright star had risen from its pinnacle, a flag stiff with the silver embroidery of their House.

Tyelkormo sounded the great horn again; his captains echoed with their own, and at that the host turned away from the isle, once more riding south, while his father led the archers back up the rocky mountain road again.

As Tyelperinquar guarded the rear, guiding and calling to their soldiers, he briefly looked behind him. The Sirion was dark as wine, and looked to be near boiling. Great clouds of dark smoke rose from the north while flame lit up behind them. Sickly greenish light wafted slowly into the vale, descending like a low cloud. Dread spread through his chest unbidden, and he urged the weary riders onwards, bidding them to move faster. Still the horns of his father’s captains called, though their sound grew muffled beneath this new heavy fog, as if their mouths were stopped with clay. And yet the horns of the buried army called to him from below the earth, riding ever on, up the mountain and swiftly away.

  
The last thing he saw before he at last could follow without considering his duties left undone was a tall, golden-haired figure striding towards the isle at an unnatural speed. His mantle held all the pallor of a burial sheet, and the howling of many wolves filled the air at his approach. Just before Tyelperinquar could turn the golden eyes snapped to his over what seemed like an impossible distance, and scent like sweet rot filled his nostrils as though there was no space between them. The Abhorred smiled, then turned away to direct his orcs to take the isle.

He sped away, his heart in his mouth for no reason he could name, no air reaching his lungs as he clung onto the wounded soldier who slumped against him like he was the one holding him up instead.

Up the mountain they went, his horse trembling with exhaustion –-but fear, still stronger, driving ever on, a hundred nameless terrors at their heels. At last they reached road’s bend where their people awaited, and their arrows whistled past his shoulders to find their deadly marks.

Then Curufinwë set spark to Dwarvish powders, and so with hidden craft collapsed the mountain on all those who dared to follow.

The pass reverberated with the sound of falling stones long after they were gone.  
-

High above that ghastly vale Orodreth emerged from the cave, deadly pale and stained with blood. He leaned listlessly on his small, dark-haired wife, whose empty quiver told a tale of its own. A long train of people followed behind them, gaunt-cheeked, carrying many wounded on stretchers and chests heavy with precious stones despite that --and even, to Curufinwë’s irritated astonishment-- herding out even no small number of hardy mountain goats.

And again they crossed through Mithrim’s grey mountains to the valley of the Sirion below, at a much slower speed now, emerging only where the Lithir rushed to join it. Then following clean water to the valley where Tyelkormo awaited them on the Old South Road, built there by Dwarves for a purpose long since forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going with the Grey Annals timeline here, in which Tol Sirion is overtaken by Sauron the same year as the Sudden flame, but before Fingolfin's death. 
> 
> C&C save Orodreth from his tower in a few versions, including this one now. ;)
> 
> I've chosen Orodreth as Finrod's less impressive brother, rather than the more distant relative of other versions.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Curufinwë is an awful prejudiced little bastard with a Dwarf exception, please don't take his opinions on human beings in general or Morwen in particular for mine. Or Tyelperiquar's even, he's just currently experiencing dangerous levels of Curufinwë exposure, with a dash of Tyelko spice. horrid Noldo man talks too much, the chapter.
> 
> When Curvo or Tyelko call Orodreth Artaresto that is very much for jerk reasons; they're perfectly well aware of who he married and why he uses the Sindarised version.

No one pursued them on the road across the withered grassland they traversed, though black smoke still rose from the North. The very peaks of the mountains they left behind them seemed to blacken gradually, and cast overlong shadows like thin, reaching fingers, yet still sent forth nothing more substantial. Often did he look behind him, half-expecting, almost hoping. For the silence was not a comfort, and the sky hung overhead like the held breath some vicious beast just before it pounces. He could not help but feel as though they were only spared for some fell purpose, and though they rode away from danger none felt now free from it.

When the moon hung heavy and full in the sky Tyelkormo rode up to him, an austere look on his blood-streaked face, though no less fair in its savagery. “How fare you, nephew? That was a retreat well-done. If you seek to relieve yourself of your companion none will begrudge you; I myself would carry Astarno for you, should it prove necessary.”

With a start, Tyelperinquar realized he was still clutching the soldier to his chest like a scared child a doll. Astarno’s fevered head lolled to the side, his breathing shallow. He could feel his cheeks heating, but if Tyelkormo understood he did not comment on it, and he was grateful for it. “He is no burden. But I will hand him to the healers now; I fear he may need their attention soon.” 

“Good.” His uncle replied curtly, and spurred his grey horse onwards to circle towards the front.

The moon seemed to trail him as he moved, the bright rubies in the iron warg’s head hanging from his saddle glinting with malicious life beneath its pale light.

* * *

Through the eaves of the sunlit oak forest of Brethil they next led their people. The Haladin supposedly dwelled now unprotected in this place with old Greycloak’s permission, having refused vassalage. Tyelperinquar had yet to see any sign of them. Curufinwë was of the opinion their leader’s answer to Carnistir’s aid had been warning enough to prove his father right; they would not accept the right of the Firstborn to rule them, not even when they endangered themselves and died to save them from the death that came for them soon either way. Shorter lived and less skillful than even dwarves, they brought only disorder and weakness where they were allowed to dwell among the Quendi. Of late there had even been rumours that on the burnt and plains of lost Dorthonion hardly any order had been maintained at all. _Elfsheen_ , Men called these brief children of swift and brittle unions, taken up in the careless security of never facing Finwë’s judgement for having two wives within the circles of this world at the same time. He uttered all this in a tone of such disgust that even Tyelkormo cast him a strange look once or twice, though he refrained from commenting.

Tyelperinquar was sure his father was trying to warn him about the way Nargothrond was said to cozen its mortal inhabitants, though the reason why he did not mention Felagund’s name was less obvious to him. Oropher was riding at the front of their host with his people, and surely could not have heard him. If the Aftercomers who had made their home in these woods could hear them they were unlikely to understand. Doriath had been hard at work to paint them as murderous usurpers, their very language an imposition. It was common these days even for servants to refuse an answer in Quenya though they understood it perfectly well. Haleth had hardly given his uncle enough time to teach her people his language. Or much of anything else, to their detriment.

As for his distant cousin, self-enthroned; his kindly temperament and many talents were fabled, though occasionally whispered to be those of the less honorable kind. Perhaps it was the birds his father watched for. Long had Findaráto’s sister dwelt in those bewitched woods of the maia Melian they had so recently escaped the outskirts of, and on Thingol’s mould the palace too was made. In Himring rumours around the fire of what strange arts Melian taught her pupils had sometimes reached his ears, though Maitimo liked their cousins well enough.

Still, it was a beautiful day, and nothing of Doriath’s heavy enchantment weighed down the air here. The wind was warmer and softer than that of the wide plains he was used to, pleasant enough through this time of war. He went to check on the golden eagles Tyelkormo kept in one of the carts, and was just feeding his favorite a strip of dried meat when he heard drumbeats behind him. He slowly turned around, his hand on the pommel of his sword. But no orcish boots approached.

  
  
“Drúedain, Artaresto calls them.” His father came to stand beside them, his hand on his horse’s bridle. There was a speculative look on his face. “Some of the Þindar consider them half-Dwarf; I take it they mean this as an insult.” It was clear from his tone that the insult was wholly on the other side of the equation to Curufinwë.

“We will stop for the night two leagues from now, and give the wounded some reprieve.”

The Drúedain did not show.

Tyelperinquar thought his father looked disappointed, but then he had not looked otherwise since Aglon fell. Perhaps he had hoped to compare their tongue to his notes on Khuzul; turning to linguistics in times of great sorrow had always been his way.

-

At night, he could hear Orodreth’s Doriathrin wife sing a slow song in some foreign key, mourning stars unnamed, erased by the fell glow of the Moon. He fell into a fitful sleep, the terror of the girdle mingling with scraps of Valinor he could not recall beneath the Sun, the beat of far-off drums mingling the sound of his heart until it was impossible to tell them apart.

-

They stopped again just before the crossings of the Teiglin, although the distance was altogether short. The trees stood further apart here, and the light that moved restlessly through their branches, the broad leaves casting lively shadows over white hemlock. 

At the edge of the water squat statues of sculpted wood were placed, not unlike guards. Each sat upon a vanquished orc, pictured in uncanny detail. Curufinwë looked at them for a long time, almost as if entreating them to speak. But the wood held its silence, though there was a queer glint in their eyes that hinted almost at awareness. “These are the watchmen of the Drúedain, as they call them.” Orodreth offered. “they are said to guard these crossings in their stead, though through what strange magics they accomplish this I do not know. I too am ill at ease around them,” Tyelperinquar saw his father’s eyes narrow at his misunderstanding, “but they are said to fight bravely, and the Haladin have not had cause to issue complaints against them.”

  
  
“Indeed.” said his father, and Tyelperinquar knew from Orodreth’s expression he utterly failed to detect that the lingering scorn in it was directed at him. His smile, though still cautious, appeared genuine.

“I know this land must appear unfriendly to you, but be assured I will inform my brother of your valor. The King will welcome you, I say, just as he will welcome me despite this loss, and not let old strive come between us now.” Tyelkormo clasped his shoulder. “Hear, hear!” he shouted with apparently genuine enthusiasm. Orodreth winced at the impact on his bruised flesh, but continued to smile through gritted teeth while Tyelko’s brotherly grasp continued unabated.

“I--” At last he must not have been able to bear it anymore, because a pained hiss cut him off.

“But Artaresto, you are in pain! Forgive me!” his uncle cried in what appeared to be genuine distress. Tyelperinquar knew him well enough not to believe a word of it, much like he knew their continued use of his Quenya name to be quite deliberate. The smile Tyelkormo gave Curufinwë when he turned away to rummage through his pack for a salve to ease Orodreth’s discomfort only confirmed it.

Orodreth sat down on a moss-covered rock. “Perhaps it is for the best that my wounds are revealed now, beneath the protection of these friendly trees, though I had wished not to dishearten my soldiers. Long did we fight Morgoth’s horde without help; my King withdrew after long fighting, nearly all his warriors wounded, and from Thingol no help came, though we are kinsmen twice over.” At this his wife came to his side, and set to tending his wounds with the salve Tyelkormo handed her, murmuring a low stream of Song. “It seems Elu has become as deaf as a Vala to our lamentations, and those of his own people besides.”

They fell silent.

  
  
“Hanta… Hantanyel.” Came the quiet voice of the dark-haired woman, who had so far not spoken. Tyelperinquar saw Orodreth startle. It was obvious Quenya did not come easily to her, though perhaps not from lack of skill.

“Annon allen.” his father replied evenly after a few moments in a very deliberate Northern Sindarin accent. It was as close to being friendly with Doriath as they were likely to get, he supposed.

* * *

They were out of the forest soon enough after that, though the sky did not lighten for it. It seemed the North wind had borne the foul air that spewed forth from Angamando past the high mountains at last, and an acrid smell of burning and rot lingered over everything. Beneath the wan, shrouded glare of the Sun the grasslands looked withered. Noonday heat beat down on their shoulders though breath hoovered before them in cold clouds. Their riders formed a column around the wagons with their pikes pointed outwards after straggler orcs were spotted by one of the scouts, but no attack commenced. Once or twice they came across gored sheep, guts spread out obscenely and bodies drained of blood, seemingly abandoned without eating.

Huan whined impatiently almost all of the time, keen to go after whatever had left the animals that way. “Not now, boy.” Tyelperinquar heard his uncle grumble-- as much to himself as his dog, Tyelperinquar thought, and smiled despite everything.

For all the desolate atmosphere it was really rather tedious.

He tried to throw a stick for Huan to retrieve, but the hound just looked at him indignantly. Sometimes he really did credit to that old joke, or rumour, or whatever it had been his father liked to tell—of having being a rebellious Moriquendë who, sun-shy and ill at ease reborn in Valinor’s brightness, insulted Namo in his ungrateful state, and was cursed to see the world through the dimmed eyes of a dog. He tried a few Avarin words with him out of boredom instead; the dog turned away with a huff. Tyelkormo cast him an offended look, looking for all the world as if he was the one insulted.

After some time the road started to rise ever so slightly while the grass grew ever higher. By nightfall they came upon a hut where, Orodreth said, herdsmen usually stayed, though they were now more likely to seek shelter in Nargothrond itelf. The ground was muddy. A few slabbed grey steps led up to a hut on high poles, and Orodreth and Curufinwë set to the task of lifting the wounded into it. Tol Sirion’s skinny mountain goats bleated loudly in protest when Huan set to herding them, driving them around in aimless circles while their people set up camp and the light dwindled.

They watched what little was to be seen of the stars all night, none willing to determine what dreams would find them. Irmo had shown little pity on those who left so far, and to dwell in recent memory was no joy.

-

They had been riding South for long days now.

Tyelperinquar could feel many eyes on their company, but saw only the long grass rippling sometimes strangely in the wind. The country was level and open as Lothann still, but the far horizon was now closed off by a long line of blue, rocky hills, and though the land seemed flat it was in fact a very slight ascent. The war had started with the first breath of winter; Aglon had burned just as it seemed to breathe its last. But the ground was cold still, and even this far South kindling buds were slowed by frost. Hunting birds returned to rest on their gloves without prey, or with rabbits so pathetic he would rather have buried than eaten them. They were at last starting to suffer from hunger as well as tediousness, hardy people though they were, and certain tensions around Orodreth’s goats were starting to arise. Their people seemed to start speaking Quenya both with more consistent lisp and significantly louder every time this happened, while answers in pointed Sindarin soon became equally common. Arguments about what constituted theft when the need was great were soon to arise and not easily quenched, though Orodreth certainly tried.

As for Tyelperinquar, he had not wished to eat ever since they had left for Aglon. But found himself nostalgic for Himring’s characteristic pink winter tisane, salty with a hint of bitterness, a lonely star anise adrift in a bright pink sea. No one knew if his eldest uncles were yet living; directing a palantír North seemed inadvisable while Angamando yet spewed forth more flame and terror. He found himself missing Maitimo's gruff efficiency, and even Makalaurë’s unrelenting wordplay and unpredictable temper. His father was silent and miserable when he was not lecturing or scheming, his uncle as occupied by directing their people as Huan was with directing their goats, if not always equally successful in his efforts. He tried to draw a more detailed map to pass the time; the ones they brought seemed wildly inaccurate, and mentioned hardly any details of the landscape at all.

There were vast wetlands to the East, and high windblown moors beyond them. He imagined summer would be a haze of purple heather here, rocky low hills covered with vapourous amethyst. For now though, late winter left the landscape a rather blighted looking brown, occasionally broken up by low hedges and peat-huts that stored slabs of salt for further transport. Nargothrond, it appeared, had dug for salt in the blue hills beyond-- and the lower moors would have been a true morass if it not for the frequent draining of the fields. The freshwater in turn was used for the grassy plains below, while sheep roamed these lonely miles with few companions.

All this Orodreth spoke of at length, with perhaps more attention to the particulars of sheep-keeping and peat-digging than Curufinwë would have liked—and succeeding in wearing out even Tyelkormo’s nearly unlimited interest in the natural world, a feat that amused Tyelperinquar greatly. His voice, ever soft and cautious, managed with its insistent monotone to dull any pre-existing interest on the part of his listeners. He almost suspected Orodreth of taking his revenge, but the man seemed entirely too genuine; it was only with great effort that they at last managed to direct his focus at anything other than soil formation processes. Unfortunately his love for water wheels turned out to be equally inexhaustible, and it was only his wife’s skillful intervention that prevented Curufinwë from contemplating pummeling him overlong. A murder of crows fled into the darkened sky at their approach, and drew their attention to the East.

Against the horizon now rose a strange and solitary hill, looming above the high moors without companion. It was far off still, but only a few dark pines held out against the low windy hills, and so offered them a clear view. It raised itself from the dun yellow hills like a balding giant. “Petty dwarves,” Orodreth offered once again unprompted. “a foul and stunted folk, much given to deceit. They made a home of the lower caves of our city before their greater brethren drove them out at my brother’s request. There are but few of them now left, though they were numerous before. They cause great harm to shepherds, and are known to steal sheep, though little is ever found of them again after.”

“Is that so….” his father replied in a scornful tone, a dubious look on his face. Unfortunately Orodreth seemed determined to repeat his earlier misunderstanding.

“Oh, I take no pleasure in our dealings with the Naugrim, make no mistake of it; but the clans the Ered Luin are honorable, or true to their word at least. My brother takes great delight in their skills in stone, and calls many friend to this day. But then he would call a warg friend if it consented to his petting.”

  
  
“I will be sure to bring him a whelp or two, then.” Tyelkormo offered with a malicious glint to his eye, just as Tyelperinquar thought his father was about to say something foul. What followed was a tiresome exchange between Orodreth and Tyelkormo, who was quite good at pretending to be entirely genuine when he wished to give that impression, and equally willing to exploit his savage reputation if that suited his purposes. Orodreth was soon deeply engaged in a rather panicked explanation of why a warg-pup had absolutely no place in Nargothrond, while Tyelkormo engaged in a spirited defense of _all_ of Yavanna’s creatures he most certainly did not mean. He had just managed to somehow twist this into a debate about a supposed insult to the Valar on Orodreth’s part when Tyelpe’s attention wandered away from them entirely.

Instead he found his eyes drawn again the strange bald Dwarf-hill, and saw his father’s gaze was on it also. He did not doubt they would soon pay their new neighbours a visit, even if—or _especially_ if Findaráto turned out to be no friend of theirs. Saviours they might now be, but if he knew his father would never wish to rely on reputation alone, especially one as contentious as theirs. Orodreth’s pale hair fluttered in the wind like a Telerin flag raised in warning before them.

Much of the rest of the journey passed in a blur, his thoughts thankfully occupied by projects left behind in Aglon, hopefully soon continued, other memories for now held at bay by thoughts of things to make. There was still an uneasy feeling of being watched as they passed through many cold mornings empty of birdsong, but no one came forward, and no swords glowed their alarm. Soon enough the river rushed into view, broad and rocky, still carrying errant ice, winding towards them through verdant green hills that became increasingly forested as they slowly wound their way West. They were close now. The carts were hidden in a cleverly concealed cave before the bushes grew too dense for later retrieval, the goats driven into a hidden pen by an overjoyed Huan.

And then there was no path at all, Orodreth’s pale hair the only thing to guide them through the underbush, growing steadily denser. The sunless grey sky was soon hidden by old and unwelcoming trees, with grasping roots and prickly, low-hanging branches. The memory of a darker wood pressed to the front of Tyelperinquar’s mind unbidden, and only with some effort did his breathing remain even. Brambles and sharp holly-leaves scratched at his cheeks as his horse nickered in protest behind him. Over his shoulder he could see his father’s tense face, his uncle still set into something remarkably unreadable.

When he looked ahead again Orodreth was gone.  
  
For one hideous moment he thought them all betrayed, left to rot in this unfamiliar wood that seemed so keen to trap them. Every tale told to him around the fire in Himring and Aglon of Arafinwë (subservient to the Valar and his own ambition alone, lily-livered and untrustworthy, deserter of even his own sons) --came back to haunt him. Several fevered moments of unnatural stillness passed throughout which he calculated in excruciating detail how long they could survive here in this wilderness with so many still wounded, and felt himself wince at imagined loss.

But then all at once the vines drew back, or were drawn back, curling upwards like a strange green stage curtain –to reveal a great bright crowd assembled behind hidden doors, one tall golden figure standing before them with an expectant look on his face. The world seemed to narrow down and light up as eyes green as grass in early spring looked into his own. All the remembered warmth of a summer’s day seemed to live in that slight smile unquenched, and he found himself full of nerves, remembering old songs—though for what reason he could not say.

It lasted only a moment before those remarkable eyes turned to Orodreth, who was drawn into a long embrace full of silent conversation. Tyelperinquar shook himself out of his strange thoughts.

Findaráto Felagund, self-enthroned King and cousin once removed stepped forward, a considering look briefly visible before only kindness remained. His voice was somehow deeper than he expected, though it was hard to say what he had expected.

“Cousins, kinsmen. I would welcome you and yours to these halls I have built beneath the earth, and hope to offer you relief from some of your sorrows. Have you any news of my brothers?”

The iron grip seemed to clench his wrists anew, he couldn’t breathe—he wished to speak--but Curufinwë cut him off with a brief disapproving look. “I fear we do, though we would share is better saved for private council.”  
  
There was no surprise on Findaráto’s face at this at all, only an intense sadness that belied his need for news. But his gaze had turned back to Tyelperinquar with piercing intensity despite his silence, and he felt the grip around his wrists anew, as if he was already stripped of secrets. 

“As you wish.” Findaráto replied after a few moments of silence. “But first I would see your needs seen to, for I sense a great weariness in all of you, and many wounds yet untended.”

Tyelkormo stepped forward. “Indeed our journey has been long and full of peril. Our thanks, cousin, for your hospitality.”

And then their worn capes were taken from their weary shoulders by many kind hands while they descended into the hidden depths of Nargothrond, winding down through paths Tyelpe could scarcely see and not afterwards remember.

For his very first glimpse of those glittering caves brought a sudden memory of Valinor so near to him that for a moment the forgotten Light he had long ceased to dream of seemed to shimmer before his eyes. He thought suddenly of his mother, lost forever beyond the Sea.

Then he realized he was crying, and blinked away the dream so he might see what was before him with some clarity.  
  


* * *

In the end he did not speak with Findaráto himself, though he was with them; it was his father who told the tale of Aglon’s fall, and of the last ragged messengers who had arrived in the hours just before their retreat to announce Aegnor’s demise and the fall of Angrod’s fortress despite their best efforts. No word crossed his lips of what Tyelperinquar had seen of Angrod after, in Aglon, or of the messengers whose requests for help had been denied, and of Aegnor’s fate no mention was made at all. He sat in silently between his father and uncle, a reassuring hand on his arm beneath the table—or one holding him back like one of his uncle’s hounds, he thought with some dismay. The chamber in which a council normally assembled was patterned with iridescent fish that almost seemed to swim before his eyes, mingling with real ones made their way through spiraling glass tubes and small canals that connected the river to the next room; nothing allowed to stand in the way of Narog’s flow. The King lingered after silence fell, as if waiting for something. Eventually a servant whispered some other duty into his ear.

“My thanks, Edrahil. I will see to it in a moment.” He turned to Tyelperinquar, and once again did not speak. But for a moment he felt something the flow of cool water dampening the fear that stayed with him ever since the valley. He realised belatedly that this was the quiet touch of his cousin’s mind.

And with that he was gone, the green silk of his trailing sleeve brushing Tyelperinquar’s hand as he turned as if by chance.


	5. Chapter 5

Tyelperinquar woke with a start, blinking disorientedly against the light that shimmered through bright leaves overhead. The sun was already bright overhead, and for a few confused moments he thought himself left behind once more, still in Brethil, somehow having slept through noon.

But these were no living leaves, and his heart soon stopped pounding in alarm as curiosity took over. The sun over his head was one produced through a complicated network of lenses, mirrors and cleverly cut jewels that caught the light and held onto it for as long as they could. He stood up to trace the architecture through the caves, if indeed they could be called such. Nargothrond’s high vaunted ceilings seemed to have hollowed out much of the hills they hid beneath, an eggshell layer of glowing green all that was left to stand between hidden city and watchful sky. But oh, what wondrous bird they hatched! He walked on as if in a dream, keen to explore more of his new home.

Tunnels reached deep into the vari-colored earth below, though even far beneath the ground a fresh currents of air carried through the halls. In the upper levels the light was always of a diffuse and indirect gold, water occasionally emerging from down below in many-splendored fountains and unexpected wild little waterfalls, while further below twinkling gems and clouds of gathered fireflies lit great rooms with floors of inlaid pearl and precious stone, gleaming beneath living lanterns. He wandered like that for many days, and paid little attention to the many curious glances cast in his direction, or indeed to any of the caves’ inhabitants save for one rarely seen. The architecture was more interesting by far, and he found himself drawing up a long list of questions on its construction to ask its designer if he should speak with him again.

But he saw very little of his cousin after their first greeting, and never up close. Findaráto always seemed to be surrounded by a great crowd of courtiers; always with some lord or lady to smile at, or another eager for his advice. When he entered a room all flocked to him, and though he was courteous to everyone it was clear that he had little time for anyone as a result. Though he truly did seem to try. Some days past he had seen him in passing, kneeling to demonstrate a simple technique to a young child; the girl had somehow dragged an enormous harp all the way to the throne room. Another time on his way back from the forge he caught him laughing with the washerwomen, learning their bawdy songs and beating wet laundry with a washing paddle. It was fascinating, and quite different from how his uncles ruled at home. But it was clear his subjects loved him, and he loved them in in turn; as a result he was rather inaccessible to everyone equal measure, and though he seated them at the same table where he himself sat, always seemed to exist on some elusive plane above them, though not through ill intent.

Or so Tyelperinquar thought. His father, as he told him repeatedly over breakfast and then again at lunch and once more during dinner-- was not at all of such a favorable opinion. Every gesture of goodwill was taken apart and examined with the eye of a seasoned wordsmith, no word left to its initial simple meaning. He soon seemed to be occupied with almost nothing else, all invention left behind on the withered plains of their lost country. Though their position was insecure it surely was not _that_ bad? His cousin seemed keen enough to welcome what talent and power of arms they brought despite the proud eight-pointed star stamped firmly onto every surface. And he did not seem to be the sort of ruler who would have left them in the cold even without those benefits; if he had any obvious flaw it seemed to be that he like to be liked, and was prone to considering that alone payment in full.

But Curufinwë was the proud son of an erstwhile Crown Prince and brief King; he took to charity badly, saw every kindness undeserved as a thinly veiled insult. Tyelperinquar often saw him go over the same council-papers in the evening as he had in the morning, teasing out some hidden meanings that were likely not even in them, a dark and brooding look upon his pale face. He was, perhaps, remembering another time when cousins should not have been left in the cold, yet were left there all the same.

During one of many dull and pointless council meetings Findaráto had offered to give them a share of the goats they helped to rescue from Sirion, but only if the original owners agreed. His father had railed about it all night after the doors of their chambers were safely locked behind them, convinced it was an ill-concealed slight about certain ships they all remembered. It might have been; Tyelperinquar was not so sure, though there was reason enough his cousin's voice had been level and without a hint of insult as he had suggested it, occupied as they had been by proposed agricultural reforms. Even if it had been a barbed rebuke in the guise of an innocent remark it was hardly an unexpected sentiment, nor one wielded with the power he could easily have given to it.

In the end it was not simply the pride of a prince, he thought. It was almost as if after being confronted with too many possibilities for cruelty he could no longer put his trust in kindness, had trouble even imagining it; he seemed bewildered and troubled upon encountering it, over-eager to mistake it for something else. He whipped Tyelkormo into irrational fury against their host as his distrust ate away at him, day by day, until almost all his thoughts were consumed by the invented idea of another, and conversations became draining. He was restless and dour, and got even on his uncle’s unassailable nerves. And still every morning Tyelperinquar would come to his chambers, unwilling to give up, two leather aprons slung over his arm, to ask his father to come with him to the forge. He succeeded only occasionally. When he did his father still managed to outdo him in the making of many useful things with a speed borne from long practice.

With relief Tyelperinquar would see him slip back into his old rhythm of working without eating, astonishing and delighting whoever asked anything of him. But sooner or later something some minor lord said would disturb it, and remind his father of Findaráto; seemingly harmless but only waiting (or so he said) for the right time to strike. The illusion of regaining who he had been to him for many years would shatter with the clang of the forge door shutting behind him. 

-

(And every night Tyelperinquar dreamed of Arimaitë’s face swallowed by black smoke, a stand-in for everyone he could not so very clearly remember losing, her drawn features and set expression surrounded by ever-encroaching flames.

Though he found himself curious about the King every unexpected flash of bright golden hair clenched the iron bonds about his wrists anew. And he knew he was not the only one not to find relief in dreams. The walls between their chambers were not thick enough to muffle the screams entirely. He knew they all felt their failures keenly, though there was truly little more they could have done. Every mistake was remembered by his father as a personal slight to Fëanáro’s memory. And still there was no word from his eldest uncles, cut off to the East).

-

The muddy palantír lay idle in its tattered blanket in their antechamber, awaiting the lifting of black airs. The far mountains burned steadily on.

* * *

And so despite the many marvels in this hidden city Tyelperinquar now often found himself longing for those old unsafe days left in Himlad. There he had wandered aimlessly without ever feeling alone, and his father had often laughed without rancour; together they had made many new things. He missed their narrow pass with its cold ground covered by moss and lichen, and the wide flatlands beyond it through which enormous tusked beasts used to roam. Every winter they would come from the far North, leaving again as the first of the spring winds drifted in. Until one day when Makalaurë sung and convinced them to stay, to guard their horses and trumpet their defiance at the peaks of the fortress far away. He wondered if those great wild herds returned safely now to their frozen lands where even the Moriñgotto did not reach—if there was anything left at all of those wild green plains where Tyelkormo and Curufinwë had been fell but valiant and unconfined, their pride not given to longing for more power than was already in their possession.

Unexpectedly he found himself drawn now instead to Orodreth’s daughter, whose kind disposition and wide-ranging knowledge of the landscape they found themselves in held none of her father’s dullness. She proved a dependable distraction. Her hair was the exact same shade as Findaráto’s; a rich gold unblemished by Telperion’s silver. But no sudden clenching of an iron grip returned to his wrists at its brightness, and his memories seemed easier to bear when she spoke. The light in her eyes was softer than even his own; only a dim the reflection of Endórë’s lights showed in their depths, like stars reflected in a deep lake. She was yet young, and had not seen much of suffering. Her attention was wholly for the world around them, neither longing for nor plagued by some other country.

“Oh, to hear the children speak of it you would think the Valar left only yesterday!” Finduilas laughed. “I heard a charming little song about the Andram when I was minding them—very inventive, I’ll give them that—being where Morgoth dug his fingers into the earth when Tulkas tried to drag him away in chains, to the tune of _All In Laurelin’s Light_ , of all things; _And Bauglir held on fast/to the domed world below/so deep dug vile fingers/that golden lava flowed/so if you see these dark mountains/remember then to say/a prayer to lord Tulkas/at the closing of the Day._ ’ Her voice carried; she was a good singer. Quite a few heads turned to observe them standing together in a corner of one of the city's great halls.

“At least I know they remembered something of mountain formation, though their understanding of it is rather fanciful.” And then she went on to describe in great detail many of the same things her father had already told them, though this time he had no trouble paying attention. 

He took to riding out with her, glad for the escape. Her father seemed thankful his far-wandering daughter had some protection, and gifted him a new saddle for his horse (though no goats, for which he was glad).

* * *

And so the days went by. He would return in the early afternoon from their explorations of the wild, where he worked with Finduilas on more detailed maps and collected many rock-samples. On his return he would create inspired by what he had seen, incorporating any new stones they discovered. Through jewel-bright halls he wandered in the early evening trying to find his father, who seemed less displeased of late but often still was not to be found. Often he would seek his him in vain, arms aching from the forge—only to walk into him talking softly in a hidden corner to some vain craftsman doubtlessly more interested in having talked to a son of Fëanáro than anything that son might have to say to him. There were well-established guilds already in place, and he soon learned most of the craftspeople of Nargothrond did not like to be corrected. The blunt criticism he was used to went unappreciated and was instead understood as an insult. Neither were they much given to true invention; some seemed outright offended by much of the knowledge they brought. And the knowledge that came with them was truer treasure than any Orodreth’s chests of gold saved from ravaged Sirion. There were certain techniques, not often taught and never on this side of the Sea --that did not call upon Maia or Vala, but instead grasped directly into threads of Song. Only a few could now work them, his father chiefest among them. And there was the only half-deciphered Book of Opening, not spoken of; Fëanáro’s most complicated and least shared research, incomplete at his death, which his father now dared to hint at, to Tyelperinquar's consternation. 

It did not even aid their cause. Few of Findaráto’s craftspeople forgot what had first started the feud between the eldest Houses. Words of rebellion spoken against the Valar caused Ñolofinwë great offense; many of Findaráto’s followers shared in these Vanyarin sensibilities. Though never explicitly forbidden most felt plucking at Fate’s strings was best left to Vairë, an opinion Fëanáro infamously did not share. His very Oath was spoken in defiance of it, a deliberate hammerblow to the story of the world—and the blood its working had shed connected now in their minds to any working of one’s Will upon the Song in so direct a way. So while the stirrups his father invented for their Northern archers were eagerly received, more marvelous inventions were viewed with some suspicion. Worse; many soon seemed to forget who invented apparently so obvious an object, and many others he introduced. Stirrups were after all so easily reproduced, and soon wrought into many shapes. With bitter eyes Curufinwë soon saw even proud visitors from Doriath flaunting silver stirrups made by some Avarin smith to the East, without so much as a word of thanks for their creator.

Tyelperinquar half-expected an official reprimand delivered through some messenger when he set up their experiments in a far corner of the forge, but none ever came. He was was largely left to his own devices; now that his father was preoccupied by politics and created mostly as a favor, he found he was the only one interested in true experimentation, the only one to still chase after invention. As for Findaráto, he prided himself on his tolerance of strange ideas, which he seemed to treasure as much as he endeavored to correct them --in his Secondborn subjects in particular. He was dedicated to the task; a new official emblem had only recently replaced his stylised golden flower-sun encircled by two green snakes; a harp and torch now showed instead of traditional symmetry. The occasion was the saving of the King’s life by Barahir in the Fens of Serech shortly before their arrival.

Curufinwë was loudly of the opinion this was a rather extravagant way to reward a vassal for carrying out his duties on the battlefield. Tyelperinquar thought saving the life of one’s King at great cost went rather beyond that, but knew by now that there truly was no point in arguing. Though he had long ago reached his majority he had never disagreed so often with the ones who raised him. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, and part of him couldn’t help but resent Nargothrond for it, blameless as its people were in his father's warping.

* * *

Many times after that descending into the hollow world he slipped out into the cold morning air with Finduilas, or with the guards when she was called to other duties. His uncle would often join them, soon separating and ranging beyond the Hills of the Hunters on his own or with a few of his faithful, former devotees of Oromë all. They would return late at night with bloody warg heads dangling from their saddles in warning, never long enough without replacement to start rotting. This had been a custom up in the North, where to hunt fell creatures was not a feat of daring, but simply a daily necessity if one wished to live. The soldiers did not like to be seen without a fresh kill on view; and their competition was long encouraged in the face of the endless supply of monsters Angamando spewed forth, to hold despair at bay. In this kinder climate the Fëanárorian soldiers’ austere customs stood out like a sore thumb, even if the hills had never been more peaceful than they were under their watch.

He tried to explain this to Finduilas, who reacted with undisguised horror to the sight when she first encountered it. “We draw our strength,” she had said, in a rare moment of seriousness, “not from what vengeance we wreak on the enemy, but from what we can preserve from him, by the grace of the Valar.”

They had been standing in one of Nargothond’s many stone courtyards, the stars bright above them through a skylight, maps of the mountain range spread all around them. He’d looked back at her with some bewilderment.

“We crossed the Sea—the Ice,” he swallowed uneasily, “We left Aman to defeat him, and to regain the Light that no longer lights the far shore. I hardly think a reminder of the possibility of defeating evil harmful.”

Finduilas had picked up one of the maps again. “I think,” she said slowly, “even so, that the defeat of evil should not be what we fight _for_ , only limiting the suffering it has caused; more is beyond our grasp— and what are those monsters but Yavanna’s creatures twisted and controlled? What does it make of to us, when we gloat over their defeat?” But then she laughed suddenly. “But ah, I now sound like my uncle—or a second-rate version of him, rather!”

A strange thrill shot through him at that.

He decided not to mention Tyelkormo’s habit of collecting the left hands of any orcs he encountered and impaling them on sharp branches in warning.

* * *

They had been sitting in the council chamber for many hours now, and Tyelperinquar was truly starting to regret his sudden impulse to accompany his father. There had been much nodding and smiling from every side while somehow not much was said at all. Most of Nargothrond’s daily rule seemed to be concerned with animal husbandry and who had the right to hunt where and when; long peace had moreover allowed people to form petty grudges to rival those in Tirion itself. A few of the craftspeople had agreed with their proposal to expand the forges however, much to his surprise. It appeared his father’s late-night conversations had garnered more success than Tyelperinquar thought.

The conversation was swiftly taking an unexpectedly charged turn.

Findaráto leant back so the sun caught his hair just so, a considerate expression on his beautiful face. His eyes flashed with something unreadable. “On the contrary, dear cousins! As my honored guests I simply cannot allow you to be so unfairly exploited. Expanding the guilds is an unnecessary burden I do not wish to shoulder you with. As for the hill-patrol; you will be glad to hear my troops are not in need of new commanders. Neither will you find Nargothrond lacking in swords; no battle will be lost for want of them.” 

“Nor do weapons alone decide battles, if there are no minds sharp enough to wield them.” His father countered, frowning. Orodreth drew an audible breath and looked as though he would speak, but after a strange look at Tyelperinquar kept his silence.

“Do you then doubt those I have chosen to wield them in my stead?”

“The very same whose hides we saved with our own? Then yes, I doubt.”

Findaráto narrowed his eyes at that. “Your tongue, dear kinsman, is as sharp as that dark blade you carry into my chambers, and equally unsheathed.”

“And thy words are ever sheathed in sweet sentences, but carry sharp sentiments all the same.” Curufinwë replied.

A tense silence descended on the room.  
  
But Tyelkormo suddenly stood and walked to where the King was sitting across the low table, scattering documents as he went. His arms stretched out as if to welcome Felagund into an embrace. “Then let no further words divide us! You will accept my friendship.”

He crushed Findaráto to his chest, who smiled benevolently and grasped him in turn, until Nauglamír’s gems pressed into his chest like angry fingers.

They released each other at the same time as if by some unspoken rule.

“Do not worry, dearest cousin,” he said, still firmly holding Findaráto by the shoulders, “about burdening us, for we would serve your kingdom gladly. If my brother’s words are somewhat sharper than manners would allow them to be—it is only because kin needs not feign false friendship, and can speak simple truth amongst themselves.”

“Indeed.” Findaráto said flatly as he drew back, the finely pleated silk of his robe somewhat flattened at the front. “Since simple truths seem to be what we speak of tonight; tell me when your brother visits the Nibin Noeg again, will you cousin? It would be my duty as his King to accompany him on visits of state, unless he thinks himself better suited to the crown as well as the sword.”

Curufinwë paled and opened his mouth as if he meant to speak again, but no words followed. The muttering council members were abruptly dismissed for the day with a distracted wave of Findaráto’s graceful hand.

His uncle stood waiting for them by the door, waiting for his father to gather his wits, casting an appraising look at the smith’s apprentices disappearing around the corner as he did so. A perfect impression of Nauglamir was pressed into his white collar like a ghostly crown.

Tyelperinquar ran after his father and uncle as they strode out of the council chamber shoulder to shoulder, whispering angrily amongst themselves. “I told you not to. Am I not your older brother?” he heard Tyelkormo hiss. “You knew as little as I did! I could not have known--” “And for what, Curvo! For _what_ , I ask you—“

They fell silent as they passed some of Findaráto’s most loyal, a cloud of disdainful bejeweled green and gold tracking their progress through the halls.

He turned to his father the moment the doors of their shared antechamber shut behind them. “Father, what did you—“

“I do not wish to discuss it at this time.” Curufinwë cut him off rather venomously. “Nor would I appreciate it if you did so _for_ me, Tyelko. I will see you both on the morrow. Good night.”

The heavy oaken door banged shut behind him. Tyelperinquar started to go after him, his hand still outstretched.

But Tyelkormo ruffled his hair so the braids came undone, a lopsided smile on his face. “I wouldn’t risk it, pityaquárë. He’s bound to be in a foul temper some time yet, but will explain everything you now think you wish to know of in so much detail you will regret ever asking soon enough. Why don’t you go for a stroll with that sweetheart of yours hmm, breathe some fresh air? And take care of your horse.”  
  
He was too startled to correct him before his uncle was already out of the door, Huan leaping after his long strides.

-

The cavernous room fell into a dark and cold silence around Tyelperinquar, empty as if no one had been there for years. He shivered, and went to look for Finduilas’ warm presence, and the bright stars of early spring nights. 

They led their horses up hills that were their roofs that night, until the river stretched below them, both eager to get away.

The Narog shone like a green serpent in the spring night. “Pyrosmaragd.” Finduilas said. “The miners found them in the darkness of the caves near Tol Sirion some years ago. They took samples only because they did not recognise the material, though it looked dull enough then. But once they came back after having left their basket out in the sun, this is what they saw. My father gifted many of the stones to uncle and—“she laughed. “he threw them into the river.” She turned to Tyelpe with a grin. “My father thought it an insult at first, though he is far too polite ever to say it. I think he forgets how very Valinorean uncle has always remained. He’d scatter our best rubies on the beaches if he thought he could get away with it.”

If she noticed he asked more after her uncle than herself she was kind enough not to say it.

* * *

Dawn came cold and pale, and with it some understanding. What had transpired turned out to be roughly this; his father, malcontent with what little support he could muster beneath the hollow hills and sorely tried by how limiting he found their current possibilities in the forge he now barely used, had sought to befriend the mysterious Dwarves they’d heard of on their long way to their new dwellings. If linguistic curiosity about a yet unheard of clan had perhaps played its part he wisely did not speak of it in front of Tyelkormo, who was not terribly fond of Khuzdul at the best of times, and could not be counted on to be especially considerate about that interest in these circumstances.

He set out alone beneath a dark and moonless sky, leaving his horse hidden behind an abandoned shepherd’s hut and crossing the high moors on foot to avoid detection. The Dwarves had been unusually hard to find despite the fine jewels he brought to trade. The strange bald hill was red with early seregon, and no door was visible before he was pulled into one unawares; soon enough he wished he had not found them at all. His traditional Noldorin looks alone made him an usurper by sight, though he had not driven anything but orcs and worse out of his mountain pass to settle it. Curiously enough the eight-pointed stars embroidered on his doublet especially enraged his unwilling hosts. He only escaped with his life because they had been so surprised by his mastery of Khuzdul that the knife raised readily over his threat had stilled.

It was soon revealed these so-called Petty Dwarves bore Nargothrond an impressive grudge. The caves had been theirs when they were still called Nulukkizdîn, long before the elves came and changed all the names. Salt-mining in the great hills beyond and grazing below had ruined the low moors for their use; freshwater was now frequently drained to make them accessible to sheep, while the heavy salt water below supported many water-plants, but not those they were used to eating. They were the last of their kind, and deeply unhappy about it.

All this was _excellent_ news to Curufinwë, who had assured them in perfectly cultured Khuzdul that he was no true friend of Findaráto’s and would gladly see that right was done by them. The house of Fëanáro, he assured them, had a long history of treating Dwarves with honour, unlike these treasonous Arafinwëans.

-

That had been perhaps his worst mistake at all, he sighed wearily. But he continued his unfortunate tale in full even so, his face half-hidden beneath newly bare hands.

‘The house of Fëanáro, treat us with honor! Phah!’ the ancient Dwarf had harrumphed in heavily accented Khuzdul, his finger jabbing threateningly at Curufinwë’s thigh. ‘For your Mahal-damned house is the very reason why I fled with Ibun and Khîm my sons to this clan of outcasts in the far West!’ A goat bleated forlornly in the distance. Curufinwë remained silent, looking down upon the Dwarf with a carefully blank expression.

‘Your Lord Carnistir—he flew into a mad rage, accusing my honorable father Ea-Nasir of delivering him copper of inferior quality. Perhaps he himself ill-judged the ingots; the Men we traded with complained not until he did! The blaggard did not allow us to gainsay him, and heeded not our true-sworn oaths. Instead he sent tablet-scribes all the way over the Eastern Mountains to collect complaints from treasonous folk left behind with good reason—and presented these to the Ered Luin clan leaders a red-faced spectacle.’ The ancient dwarf seemed to need a few moments to breathe, looking now quite a red-faced spectacle himself.

Curufinwë decided this was in fact not a good time to reveal that Carnistir was not his Lord but his brother. Before the dwarf could cause further commotion he’d offered him several fine jewels, briolette-cut, and promises to argue their plight before his liege lord. At dusk Mîm-Nasir reluctantly let him go without further issue, though no promise of copper either, of inferior quality or not.

And so he had returned to his chambers, tail tucked between his legs, glad at least Findaráto did not know of his humiliation, a few rare gems lighter and with nothing to show for it.

Huan huffed from where he sat at Tyelkormo’s feet.

-

Come to the end of his tale, his father retired to his study for the rest of the week, and came out only to eat.

* * *

Tyelperinquar wondered how Findaráto had known, long after his father had told of his ill-fated adventure. Curufinwë muttered something about treacherous guards hidden in Narog’s reeds, though it was never clear how they had followed him all the way up the bare hills without being seen. Was it true, then, that he spied on his subjects through the eyes of thrushes, or looked into others’ minds without permission?

He asked Finduilas about it, but she did not know. Then he asked some more things about the King, which surely would benefit Curufinwë. He found himself trusting her with many things, and trusted in turn. And so he came to learn that Findaráto was particularly fond of silver, a preference shared by his mother’s people. If he found himself drawn to learn more about silversmithing after—well, his epessë did mean silverhand, not ‘artificial jewel hand’—though these had up to that point been his specialty. He said as much to his father when he frowned at it in the forge, and Curufinwë readily approved of what he construed as his plan to curry favor.

The King continued to be elusive outside of the council sessions, during which Tyelperinquar could never think of anything to say. They were, for the most part, rather uneventful; in truth he came solely for the flash of evening sun on rare silver-gold hair, a sight he often found himself pondering upon in the forge when experimenting with new alloys. Sometimes Findaráto’s piercing gaze would suddenly cross his admiring one, a strange thrill would shoot through him even as he quickly looked away. He felt as if he was doing something his father would not approve of, though in truth there was nothing to it he thought he would not understand. Looking with great longing upon the hair of an Arafiwëan was, after all, a family vice, and one that had led to greater works. He was sure he did nothing his family would truly disapprove of, nay, might even encourage, had they known!  
  
Until one time when he again overstayed his welcome to see the sun catch that wonderful hair just so, and a slim hand caught his wrist just as he finally turned to follow the last of the lords out into the hall.

"A moment, Tyelperinquar."

His pulse fluttered wildly in Findaráto’s hold as he slowly turned to face him, feeling like a child caught stealing sweets. Green silk slippers peeked out from beneath the elaborate robes. They were very fine robes, in a style common here but quite different from the thick wool and furs they wore up North; a layer of finely pleated, sleek silk that moved with wave-like fluidity and flattered the curves of the wearer’s body, half-covered by a robe of gold-stenciled velvet, edged with true goldwork. He supposed that perhaps the embroidery produced by their craftspeople was of finer make, but the _overall_ effect was rather—

"Tyelpë."

He looked up, startled by the shortened form, and found himself pinned for a moment by a bright green gaze, faintly amused and far closer than he thought it would be. He looked down at their hands.

"The guildmaster tells me that you have shown an interest in silversmithing of late. You might not know I was taught by mother’s people them in my youth, though my heart has ever been more given to sculpture."

The room was very warm. Findaráto had still not let go of the wrist, only slowly moved to grasp his fingers instead. Many rings pressed coolly against his skin. Mostly gold, and one simple band of silver, Tyelperinquar noted. They were beautiful hands, not quite as calloused as his own; only at the fingertips that had just now slid slowly from his wrist, over the inside of his palm, and curled around his fingers. The callouses were, he realized like—they like Makalaurë’s. But his voice was softer, his accent lilting and emphasising in odd places, as if the words themselves were dancing in an unseen breeze. ‘...and thin as seafoam. If there is any way I can help you imitate that technique I would, though I daresay my own instruction has not been without flaw. It has been too long since I have seen the inside of a smithy, and so few people in these lands show an interest in a metal they deem of lesser worth. Well! Your name _is_ silverfist; was your mother much given to foresight?”

There was an expectant look on his face; his eyes were very light green, ringed by a startling black. The Light was alive and well within them still, warmer than in the Light of eyes he had known, as if Findaráto had spent all his days in Valinor resting directly beneath Laurelin’s boughs; the overall effect was rather like looking at the Sun through a veil of spring leaves. The idea for a statue of alabaster with hollow eyes of eggshell-thin chrysoberyl hiding a bright lamp came to him, but for the statue’s hair...

There was a strand of long golden hair moving in a current of air, just before Findaráto face, almost blowing into his. Tyelperinquar nearly felt his hand come up to catch it before he caught himself. He flushed again and cleared his throat, instinctively balling his hands up into fists; and so only succeeded in clasping Finarato’s hand tightly within his own instead. A wave of mortification hit him quite violently, and he felt himself colour further.

He had neither replied nor done anything courtesy required, and surely by now assumed the colour of seregon; he was turning out to be more like Carnistir by the second, and could not remember what the question had been. -- “I – my King." Well, his father wouldn’t be pleased by _that_ mode of address. “Forgive my discourtesy, I was lost in thoughts of my craft; the new opportunities for invention an exchange of knowledge could bring.” There.

Findaráto did not let go of his hand at once, however; he pressed back instead, as if sealing a vow, the palm warm against his own, and set something close but not quite like dread aflutter in Tyelperinquar’s stomach.

“You need not apologize. It is but natural for a craftsman to be occupied by thoughts of his craft; it is for that purity of interest that I would enjoy working with you. Often some boon seems to be the true reason why I am asked to look at anything, of late." Nauglamír sparkled at his throat, moving with Findaráto’s words. It truly was a remarkable piece of craftsmanship, perfectly attuned to the wearer’s skin.

“Ah.” Was all Tyelperinquar could think to say, still thinking of the contrast between warm skin and cold metal.

At last he gathered his wits; it was already eventide, and he’d promised. “If you will excuse me now, I told Finduilas I would accompany her today; she awaits me by the horses.”

“So that is where you hide when you go missing from the forges! Very well. I often explored these lands with your eldest uncles. When my lords see fit to release me of I shall have to steal you from her, sometime.”

“What—my horse?” said Tyelpe, whose unsettled mind had already galloped halfway towards the safety of the stables.

Findaráto looked at his confused face for a moment, then craned his head back in merry laughter, finally letting go of his hand to wipe at his eyes. He sounded, suddenly, quite like Finduilas—and all the strange tension drained out of the air within seconds.

Tyelperinquar blushed in embarrassment, still vaguely unsettled but already feeling a hesitant grin form on his face in response.

“Yes, perhaps your horse too, if you don’t watch yourself.” Findaráto said, and clapped him on the back much like Tyelkormo would have done. “Now—I think you have an appointment with my niece to attend to.”  
  
“I do. Farewell. That is --until later. Your majesty. Cousin. Findaráto.”

He fled down the hallway before he could decide on an acceptable form of address.

* * *

His horse, in fact, seemed rather offended by his lateness, and showed it by kicking at his shins. She was a strong young mare; or young by Valinorean standards, which was a very age old by the count of Endore indeed, and considered these regular outings with the two of them her due for having carried him through less pleasant places. The golden one had arrived in time and placated her black mood by brushing her sleek brown coat, but she was not entirely ready to forgive her master.

Finduilas, thankfully, was in a better mood. Her mother had taught her a series of Doriathrin rope-making techniques the evening before. They held a dim gleam even on moonless nights; silver elven hair had been twined around a core of mithril with Song helped by clever hands, and they would serve them well on the less accessible rock-faces they had marked on the map earlier. Perhaps, she said, it would be possible to reach caves yet unreachable with the aid of her new cables, and take samples of what ores were hidden there. Tyelperinquar in turn thought of a system of hooks and rings to ease their way up while they climbed, and worked all night to present them to her at dawn-- and perhaps to ease the strange tension from his limbs through working them to exhaustion

He pondered (despite his best efforts to avoid that very activity) on Findaráto’s words, the wish for companionship they implied, as well as his own motivations. In truth he found little joy in working with silver as of yet. If there was any truth to his name it was a metaphorical one; much like Makalaurë only rarely cleaved gold, he had been more given to growing gems and inventing new alloys. There was perhaps more truth to Curufinwë’s idea of learning a craft to curry favour than he had been willing to admit to himself, though his aims were not quite what they should be. It was, in the end, more embarrassing to covet one’s cousin’s hair than to have some shrewd political purpose.

He thought of admitting his preoccupation to his father, but found he could not. Fëanáro was inspired when he asked for Artanis’ hair.

Tyelperinquar, to his distress, found the sight inspired no artistic visions in him. He only wished to wind fluid gold around his fingers without creating, lost in slow dreams of long-ago Laurelin.

-

He returned to the forge, and read Fëanáro’s notes on mastering Light until the fire went out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Curufin thou'd Finrod in front of his entire council; goat-adjacent politics are getting spicier.


	6. Chapter 6

There were bees in Nargothrond. Of the many strange things there were now to notice this was perhaps the one least expected. They alighted on cold flowers carved out of deep red rock crystal and lazuli, fuzzy bodies half-hidden between curled leaves of nephrite and jade. A pale green mouse of beryl sat on its haunches to observe them, the gold of its whiskers almost twitching in an absent breeze.

“Bëor’s folk gave them to us, before the Sudden Flame.” Came Findaráto’s voice suddenly from behind him. “They are said to bring a bear-spirit’s blessing— one perhaps more at home in these damp caves than they will ever be.” A bee alighted on his finger near a simple band of silver, stretching its legs. He sounded sad. “But they don’t belong here. We built a garden for them down-below, where flowers not made of gems now grow for them. And yet they keep coming up here, enticed by brighter colours, dying between hard odorless petals deprived of sustenance.”

He gestured for Tyelperinquar to walk with him, the bee still on his hand. “Come, I will show you the way. It may be to your liking, though it appears not to be to theirs.”

  
They took but a few unexpected turns, and soon enough he found himself once again in a part of the city he had never seen. He followed in a daze, noting the soft swish of Findaráto’s many-layered robes over smooth unfamiliar stone, mingling with the sound of the river somewhere beneath it. Though the whole city was itself a great work of art it never seemed to impose on its environment; the caves that became great chambers felt so right in their shape that they appeared almost grown, for all their intricate adornment. The rough, mossy cliffs on the banks of the Narog concealed an entire world, with doors carved only on the inside with many strange and coiling animals—the way the forest itself seemed to push one away from the entrance, in hidden accord with it—there was something about the city of the dwellings of the Maiar in Aman, and he wondered if that was a result of the way it was built or the goal of the builders. It was at the same time wholly unnatural and part of the landscape, a stupendous outgrowth of the earth itself, flowing seamlessly into dizzying turns of polished artifice.

Many of the city’s reliefs and sculptures were made by Findaráto’s own hand, and he traced their lines without thinking as he followed in his footsteps. The King had not misspent his time as a pupil of Nerdanel, though none of the stone creatures ever showed that unsettling illusion of life she had been known for. The beauty of Nargothrond was a perfectly still one, beautiful as a motionless memory of Valinor at the final Mingling, just before the light of the Trees was doused forever. He found he did not miss the restless wind and moving sky of Himlad overmuch, though he knew the high sparkling domes pressed down on his uncle as surely as those of a small prison cell.

Findaráto smiled at him over his shoulder, still holding the bee aloft on his right hand. Tyelperinquar hardly dared to believe his luck. After so many stolen looks and surreptitious trailing after, somehow never seeming to come closer he was – here, walking with him as though it was the most natural thing in the world. There were no Lords or Ladies to surround them; no adoring children or unexpected gifts, and no hand to hold him back like a hound and say “observe; this is how he wins them over.”

‘Here we are now. We placed as many lamps as we could spare in this low room, but still it is not as light as they would like it.”

The hall was not a small one, though it initially appeared to be, full as it was. Many pale moths flocked to blue lamps set into niches carved into the rough grey rocks that decorated a garden, while small stones that shone with a light all of their own set the patterns of the unseen night sky in the ceiling, like Nur-Temel in miniature. The ground teemed with long shadowed-leaves and flowers that lit up like faint shards of moonlight, visited by hesitant bees. Mist mantled around grey trees of a kind he had never seen before, smooth and so polished looking. He at first mistook them for more of Findaráto’s statues, and raised his hand to trace their lines; but they were strangely warm to the touch. Something eerily close to a pulse moved beneath his hand. He withdrew in shock.

“Ah. Don’t be alarmed.” Findaráto said. “Finduilas’ mother Luinistel designed these gardens after those of Doriath’s long years of starlight, when light and warmth was far and cold ever near. The plants adapted—and disappeared with bright Sun’s rising, now obsolete, slow-growing and sun-shy, mourned only by the eldest of the Quendi. They, too, kept bees—though they were strange and transparent creatures, steering by sound more than sight. I had hoped Bëor’s bees would eventually adapt, but still they seek the Sun, and all the colours they have been denied.”

The garden was very silent. Findarátos breath was audible and slightly uneven. “There is very little left of their people, now. Most remained in Dorthonion with my brothers.”

  
“Oh.” Was all Tyelperinquar could think to say, too absorbed by the garden’s strange beauty to care much for the impeccable princely courtesy expected of him at all times. Everything was suffused by a strangely familiar sweet smell, though he could not quite place its origin. The leaves seemed to shiver in their own private breeze, as if caught in unimaginable dreams of their own. Findaráto’s hand was on his arm, his hair near silver in the dim light. His eyes looked sad.

For all the love he was surrounded with, there seemed to be something desperately lonely about his cousin. There was ancient loss in his eyes that the years had not lessened but increased, and for the first time Tyelperinquar wondered this loneliness could be used to draw him closer, and be allowed his quiet admiration in return.

  
Then he felt flooded with guilt for seeing Findaráto’s vulnerability as a way to wheedle in, the unshed tears in his eyes as nothing but a means of easy access. He was uncomfortably aware of every trace of his father in himself, analyzing and exploiting every sign of weakness—albeit for a wholly different reasons.

“I…”

Was is truly not worse to be driven by selfish love or admiration instead of duty? If he could he would have stolen a hair straight from his head. He thought of all the times of late when he had noted something that made Findaráto smile, and imitated it in the hopes of finally drawing his attention, and felt some sort of acute guilt when he saw Findaráto’s head incline towards him like a doe his uncle gentled, then shot. An image of Findaráto beset by a pack of wolves flashed in his mind, and he halted, his heart clenching with guilt.

“We have a palantír.”

It slipped out before he could stop himself. His heart beat wildly in his chest. “You… you could use it sometime. If you would like. My father thinks it not safe yet. We don’t know if Maitimo—if Nelyafinwë is alive. My --we are very worried. I—I miss-” He swallowed with some difficulty, but steadied his resolve. “I saw your brothers.”

Findaráto had gone very still at his side, the grip on his arm tightening.

“My brothers?”

Tyelperinquar could only nod. The grip on his arm was like a bond of iron.

A few moments passed in silence, Findaráto’s slightly ragged breathing the only sound other than his own.  
“Where… exactly did you last see my brothers, Tyelperinquar?”

He swallowed convulsively. The words would not come. He slowly dragged his eyes up to Findaráto’s, which burned with a fevered light into his own. Then he closed his eyes.

“If you wish for it, look into my memory. But,” he drew a careful breath. “please, without my awareness of it, if you can. They say you can.”

A white hand came up to cup his cheek. “I can, if you permit it.”

“That I do.” The grip on his arm loosened.

The last thing he saw were Findaráto’s eyes bright with tears, and then the garden fell to swaying and singing around him until it reached a fever-pitch and only darkness remained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (From the Doriathin wordlist, because Finduilas' mother is from Doriath!:
> 
> 'Luin "pale". Primitive form given as lugni "blue""
> 
> "istel, istil "silver light", said to be "applied by the Ilkorins to starlight, probably a Q[uenya] form learnt from Melian" (LR:385 s.v. SIL)."
> 
> https://folk.uib.no/hnohf/doriath.htm)


	7. Chapter 7

When he next awoke it was in a luminous, unfamiliar chamber. It was full of plants—green ones, this time, and quite alive. One of the rooms near the surface, then, where direct light reached without the aid of mirrors and gems. The walls bent inwards towards the ceiling and were made of a rough, yellowish stone; the thick bricks allowed almost as much light to pass through them as a window would have. A harp lay discarded on a pile of cushions to his left. The hour was impossible to estimate, diffuse as the light was. His head felt oddly heavy. 

“Tyelperinquar.”

Finduilas sat at his side, drawn and slightly remorseful. Her eyes were red as from long weeping. “He asked me to watch over you, and to give you his thanks and his apologies. Surface thoughts, yes-- most of my father’s kin inherited Indis’ ability to reveal them without discomfort. But what you offered-- to walk in full memory—would have you see it all again. To draw you into a dreamless sleep seemed the kindest thing to do.” She looked down, frowning. “But I don’t think he said what he would do, and it was not right to take without full understanding.”

Tyelperinquar blinked up at the ceiling in silence for a few moments more, trying to gather his bearings.

He was glad for Finduilas’ presence, and unsure how he felt about Findaráto’s absence. Now at least he look at him without that secret guilt of knowing what had become of beloved brothers and not revealing. No, answering the messengers from Dorthonion would likely not have saved Angrod, only doomed their retreat. Still, it had weighed heavily upon him; covering retreats had long been his responsibility, even if he had been incapacitated during much of their most recent one. He wondered now if he had not offered his memories simply to free himself of unpleasant feelings so as to gaze upon the Light woven into his cousin's hair without guilt, not truly with any noble aim of helping anyone else. He cringed as he remembered everything he had spoken of in that hidden twilit garden, and at what had happened after. Tyelperinquar rarely kept secrets from his father, who had been his Lord in Himlad, but not, he supposed, here. Surely this was to be kept from him; it would only further encourage his mistrust and drive him away from the forge. It was too late for regret anyhow. Perhaps some good would yet come from increased trust between their Houses, even if he was the only one able to give it. Were their goals in the end not the same? He tried to shrug off his discomfort.

“Are you relieved to know, even if what I shared was perhaps worse than what you imagined?” he found himself asking instead.

She looked at him intently. “I will not pretend am glad to know; I loved my uncles, and love them still. And I know even now the King dreams of going to the ruins of the tower to break the necromancer’s chains, and rues his own wisdom; it would have been easier not to know.”

“Then..." 

“But I am glad you told him nevertheless.” she said determinately. “And I know he will be. Your father only shared what would raise his standing, and makes it hard to trust even when there is no true cause for mistrust. You spoke because it was right to, and don’t think that is easily forgotten.”

With that she squeezed his hands and left the room, only to return with the map they had been working on. "Now, you might not feel like going out yet, but I thought we could plan our next journey while you come to your senses. I don't think we have ever followed the Narog to Nan-tathren..." 

-

When he came to the stables the next morning Findaráto was waiting for him there in Finduilas stead, brushing Þúri. He turned to Tyelperinquar, his smile more hesitant than he had ever seen it before.

“I did say I would steal you from her sometime, cousin.”

“What—“repeated Tyelperinquar, smiling back. “my horse?”

  
  
The smile became a bit steadier, and returned to some of its former radiance. “Yes, perhaps your horse too. But fear not --I brought my own this time.”

-

They often rode out after that, roaming in silence before the break of dawn, or sometimes with Findaráto’s voice rising in a perfect imitation of a lark over the low hills.

Hardly a word passed between them. But often they waited together for the sunrise to flood over the low hills until not even the enemy’s fire was seen on the far horizon, an entire private world drenched in morning gold.

* * *

Even though he saw him often now his cousin remained elusive outside of their quiet morning rides.

He had thought his father unaware of those, and supposed that for the best. But one evening he went to the stables at a time when he normally would not, and saw his father and uncle through the crack of the door without their notice.

Their expressions were strange; his uncle was murmuring a low Song at his horse, who made sounds in response he had no hope of deciphering. Then he raised his head, and Þúri nickered happily as Tyelkormo fed her another tuber and braided oddly festive gold into her thick mane. He smiled widely at his brother, who stood at his shoulder with an expectant expression.

“It is as we thought, Curvo.”

A slow smile spread over Curufinwë’s face in turn.

Tyelperinquar crept back to the palace, puzzled. Some part of him wanted to simply walk in and ask what they had been up to, and what his horse could _possibly_ have said that was so satisfying, but that would perhaps lead to questioning on their part. He found he did not look forward to facing their distrust; often now, it seemed easier to keep his own counsel, and so avoid getting caught up in whatever games his father was playing to convince more people on their side, which really should have been the same side anyway.

Shouldn’t it?  
  
He went back to his forge, and gave the matter no more thought.

* * *

Meanwhile fires behind the dark mountains burned steadily on, and the Sirion still ran foul. But evil mostly seemed to keep its distance from the city. This was in no small part due to his uncle’s small company. Day and night they roamed the low hills, and cleansed whatever haunted them before it could snag as much as a single sheep. Sometimes his Tyelkormo came in late at night, his eyes wild, silver hair stained in blood both black and red, and he almost understand why some people still feared him. But then he would smile despite his exhaustion, Huan panting happily at his side, and once again he was only the uncle who had so carefully helped him unfold a velvety bat’s wing almost four hundred years of the Sun ago, before they ever came among these judging eyes.

Over the next few weeks Findaráto began to disappear at regular intervals, leaving a crowd of unsettled Lords and Ladies to wander the palace without him. They soon learned not to look for him, for their King was not found if he did not wish to be; though Nargothrond’s residents grew used to it in time it upset them all the same. Finduilas laughingly told him a story of a particularly determined councilman who had found himself stranded, for days, in suddenly endlessly circling halls beneath the palace, calling and calling for the King. There seemed to be some sort of Song-magic involved; just when the poor man had finally given up and lay himself down to die there he had found himself right in front of his very own chambers. Tyelperinquar suppressed a shudder when he heard of it, for all that it made her laugh.

He went back to his forge, and beat the silver so thin it looked like a spider’s web covered by dew.

Overall he was careful not to misspend his time, not when this peace might be so short; once again he bent his dark head over the Book of Opening, and sought for clues to bend the Song until all evil was vanquished from it. Though no Oath haunted him the Light did again, and grasping after what he knew to be a better possible world through that very same defiance. Sometimes Tyelkormo came to hum a sentence of the near illegible notes over his shoulder, but he was of little help; and still his father would not come, caught up in his attempt at converting a war-shy foreign realm to their cause. And still there was no news from Maitomo, nor from Makalaurë, all roads to the East stopped by foul fire and sorcery.

When he thought of it too much it became too much, and so he tried not to think of it. Instead he found himself working with silver once more. He found he hardly knew now how to speak to his father. Neither did he know how to speak to Findaráto, though he had offered to help him with the silver he was so fond of. Many imagined conversations died on his tongue, ground to an awkward halt by dim reality. At dawn the world was silent and filled to the brim with simple being; always he thought the Light he could never fully remember. Words felt wholly redundant. And so there was no way of asking, now, for that hair in which the Light of Laurelin yet seemed to live, and having come so close no way of forgetting it either. He watched the wind catch it, and clenched his fists around the reins until his knuckles ached.

Findaráto turned around and smiled at him over his shoulder, and sped off into the far blue distance before his mouth moved to return the expression.

He could not think of anything to make him stay.


	8. Chapter 8

They knew, long before the messenger reached them.

Lamps fell from high ceilings and mirrors cracked into great silver shards as the ground trembled beneath their feet. Shrieks echoed throughout the city as their rooms were plunged into darkness one by one, wailing that the Moriñgotto had come to find them at last. The river roared through the halls sounding as if it meant to flee its confines. 

But when a brave scout crept out of the caves she saw the fires in the North had gone out, the air now easier to breathe than it had been in long months. A heaviness that pressed down upon them all for so long a time that they barely even noticed its oppression anymore had at last retreated to its refuge far beyond the frozen waste of the North. Flowers that had long lain dormant waiting for something hard to define now erupted from between every rock, suddenly and all at once, until all the withered green of the plains disappeared beneath a riot of out-of-season colour. Red salmon returned to long-abandoned rivers and sheep set to lambing, while clouds of early butterflies danced through the air in frenzied courtship beneath a rare shades of tender blue. 

What had happened none could truly not say, not at once. But when the King asked for their hidden palantír in front of the entire council even his father was too startled by the revelation to refuse. Back in their quarters he raged about the caves being full of spies and foul sorcery, and Tyelperinquar hid his guilty look in a glass of wine.

In what his uncle took for a moment of courage he had gone to find the King in his chambers after; he remembered how to find them from when Finduilas had woken him there. The walls were indeed of the strange yellowy bricks he remembered, and let through a great deal of light from within, but little else. No answer came to his knocks, though a valet had assured him the King was inside. He gingerly pushed himself through the heavy door beneath the servant’s disapproving stare, the ancient wood creaking in protest.

But still there was no reaction to the intrusion.

He found himself facing Findaráto’s rigid, green-clad back, fair head bent over something in front of him, and waited for a while longer, looking at the inlaid swirling mother-of-pearl snakes grasping golden flowers on the floor until it felt like they would move up to strike at him. Still no answer came. He walked to face him with some apprehension, fear coiling in his belly and dampening his hands.

Findaráto’s fingers were clenched around palantír, his face cast in a sickly green light. A sharp, high sound seemed to come from deep within the glowing core of the stone, a keening tone unlike any other he had ever it make. His hand drew towards it of its own accord.

A familiar white tower glowing with green light, the pikes around the turret set with fair elvish heads, their white eyes and rotten mouths opening as if detecting their spectral presence, _screaming_ —

He found himself on the floor, mouth full of bile, breathing fast. Findaráto lay panting somewhere to his right, hands clenching and unclenching, eyes staring at the ceiling without seeing.

But Sirion was far from his mind at the words Findaráto uttered, his voice barely more than a whisper half-caught in a sob.

“Ñolofinwë has fallen to the Moriñgotto.”

He paused for breath, trembling all over.

“Grond was the cause of Nargothrond's quaking, swung at ground in vain as the Enemy sought to strike him like a cloud of low thunder until he was caught and utterly crushed, defiant even the moment of his death. Alone he rode to the gates of Angamando and alone faced him in single combat. Seven times he wounded a Vala and three times he fell before he was lost to us, though not without a little lifting of the shadow.” Findaráto turned to look at the ground, tracing the swirling patterns on the floor with a restless hands, a pained look on his face. “If hardly all of it.”

“How—I.” The world reeled before his eyes. “Maitimo. Give me the stone, Findaráto. I need to know—my father needs to know---if there is to be _any_ peace between us-" 

“I fear it is rather too late for that.” Findaráto replied cryptically, but he paid it no mind, too caught up in a sudden burst of wild hope. “But for your sake I will return it.”

* * *

They sat around the palantír on high-backed chairs as equals now, all three of them with their hands around cool material of the seeing stone, looking into each other’s eyes instead of its still black surface. It was though the stone, though yet asleep, connected and increased their shared apprehension until it was a tangible thing, the air crackling with fear and power. All of them were both eager to know yet held back by a fear of knowing none had ever known in Aman. It seemed so unlikely, that Himring should still stand. At the same time it was almost impossible to imagine it not standing. And Maitimo… Tyelperinqyar closed his eyes, breathing through his nose, or Tyelkormo did, trying to be prepared for that loss and finding he could not even imagine the feeling.

But when he opened his eyes again his uncle’s clear grey eyes shone from within the black surface without distortion. There were tears in his eyes, or in his father’s eyes, or in Maitimo’s or Tyelkormo’s—or in all of their eyes, the same vision running through their minds and reveling in a rare closeness until it felt as though instead of touching cold stone they were all standing in a circle, holding hands united against the world.

-

It was easier to hope again now, knowing that a Vala could be wounded, perhaps killed-- even if Namo implied otherwise. Now that Himring had stood through all terrors yet unnamed even on its own. Even his father found their failure easier to bear knowing one who had gazed into abyss once more had come out to stand defiant on the other side. Cursed they may be—but no Vala could cast down the sons of Fëanáro, even as fairer princes might submit to their Doom. And then Makalaurë was with them, and it was as if the Sun itself shone through the stone when he sung of their unlikely escape, of Himring’s strength like an unassailable tower, the only lonely isle not drowning in a sea of fire. He sang of the way even the ravaged, undefended plains of East had not fallen wholly to flame, how even now there were trees whose seeds were sealed with raisin, and seemed only more eager for growth after their long burning—of how no flame Angamando spewed forth could ever douse their own, or stop them from resisting.

The roads to the East were still inaccessible, but would not be forever. The earth was blackened, but would grow to become green again, and sprout many new flowers that had long waited to unfold their growing. Ñolofinwë had fallen, but he had never truly been their King—and his son held little of his bitterness against them, though it was perhaps all the more deserved. Maitimo’s face lit up with anguished love or hope when he admitted this, as if it hurt him to admit it was an advantage, and spoke of the need to unite now more than ever. He inquired of their doings in the southern Kingdom, and seemed well-pleased to hear of Orodreth’s rescue, and their slow but steady subsequent acceptance. He laughed at the reactions Tyelkormo’s methods of ensuring the safety of a weakened realm had first evoked, and the sound of it erased any doubt he had slowly started to form about his uncle’s approach to hunting. It was easier to remember Aglon now, and their wide open skies, and all the wild things they had to do to survive their long watchful stay so very near the Enemy. Tyelperinquar spoke of his attempts to decipher more of Fëanáro’s later writing, and felt himself glow with the approval he received from both of them. If there was any chance of undoing what the Doomsman had woven for them it was in that work. And they still stood, didn’t they? After curses uttered at them in every language invented beneath this new Sun, and through the long Darkness before its rising?  
  
By late summer, Maitimo said, his voice leaving no room for doubt, they would retake Aglon in full.

But they did not need return at once; Makalaurë could hold the pass for them. They had only recently invited riders from the East, mortals who fled before their Dark Foe. Weaker and less skilled but no less valiant, they were willing to serve and help them rebuild what was lost. By the time they returned everything would be again as it had been, insofar that was possible. And if Curufinwë thought could convince the Nargothrondrim to march on the Enemy under their banners despite the Ice that still touched so many hearts-- Maitimo would certainly welcome it. He had given up the crown in order to rule.

And with that the connection was severed. All of them felt filled to the brim with a wild sort of joy despite their grief, for and when Tyelperinquar returned to the forge he ground the silver of a ring he had been contemplating into a powder so fine he could mix it into clay. It was a thoughtless act, borne from a great restlessness that found no proper outlet, but he soon took to experimenting with it. After a few attempts he created a clay that hardened until it looked like true metal.

He felt giddy when he realized this might be what could hold Findaráto’s attention, even now, even if he could not seem to think of much to say. And was it not true that he needed a distraction from his grief?

Tyelperinquar set off to Findaráto’s chambers, the metal clay warm and pliant in his hands. There could be nothing shameful, he thought, in admiring to the point of invention.  
  


* * *

It took some effort to find him, but after several days of searching he at last encountered him alone in his chambers --if only because he was in the middle of penning a response to hand to a messenger. He seemed glad enough to be distracted from his task, though he made a pretence of continuing to write, and left him to stand there awkwardly, the clay starting to heat up and stick to his dry palms.

The afternoon light shone sluggish gold through the strange wall, and Tyelperinquar found his fingers drawn to feel the rough surface again while he waited. “Go on,” came Findaráto’s voice suddenly, quietly amused. “taste it.”  
  
“… taste it?”

The King put his quill down, and was now grinning at him openly. “A single lick would satisfy your curiosity, I would say.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands.

Tyelperinquar felt himself colour; but he was never one to turn down a challenge. And so he found himself maintaining eye contact as he slowly dragged his tongue over-“Salt!” he exclaimed, so startled he forgot to be embarrassed.

“Salt.” Findaráto confirmed, sounding oddly hoarse. He cleared his throat and immediately launched into a long and rather dry story on local salt-mining practices, seemingly without ever pausing for breath.“… and we mine for it in the Andram, as you might know. There was one year when the roads were blocked and no buyers could be found. I discovered then that one could make bricks of it, and build interior walls with it as with stone.”

“Besides,” Tyelperinquar replied, “if we do ever find ourselves besieged our watery soups at least shall not be lacking in salt. Did you by any chance build a chair out of peppercorn, also?”

  
“I have not, my dear smith.” Findaráto’s voice was full of laughter again despite his recent grief. “Though certain council-members certainly make the idea tempting.” His eyes drifted to Tyelperinquar’s hands. “But what is it that you are holding? A small lump of silver, it seems to my eyes, but bending readily beneath your fingers. Forgive me if I do not believe your spirit quite that fiery.” Some mischief returned to his voice when an answer did not come immediately. “Will you tell me, or would you have me come to you and lick it to find out?”

  
  
Tyelperinquar felt the colour return to his face despite his best efforts. “I made this thinking it might distract you from recent sorrows.” He said, speaking fast, holding it out to him. “It—I thought, I know Nerdanel always had her pupils work with clay, at first. If you heat it, even only above an open fire, the clay should harden as any other. I thought you might find joy in applying your considerable skills as a sculptor to silver through it.”

  
  
“Ah! I see. Because you are well-aware my skills as a silversmith are sorely lacking, even if I never gave you those lessons I did promise. A clever way to bypass those, I do say.”

But there was no hint of offence in voice as he leaned forward, only laughter and real gratitude for the distraction in his smile. Tyelperinquar found his attention snared once again by the intense contrast of his bright, knowing eyes and the darkness that ringed them, though they did not seem so piercing now.  
  
“And I know how to repay you! I shall teach you to work with clay, if you have any interest in it.”

  
  
Before he even know what he was saying he had already replied in affirmative. His heart danced merrily within the cage of his ribs as he walked back to the forge.

* * *

Several days later he left his chambers at dusk; his uncle and father were away, attending a gathering organised by a dull smith’s apprentice of high birth with little else to offer. He told himself he was not sneaking away. It was early in the evening when he arrived at Findaráto’s doors. He found his eyes drawn again to his surroundings; the hallway here was lit now only by the luminous soft moss that covered the walls, while the walls of the private chamber were bent slightly inwards at the ceiling and glowed with warm gentle light from within; it brought to mind nothing so much as an egg large enough to hide a dragon, carefully hidden in a soft nest.

It cracked open before he could knock, and he was pulled in before he could utter a greeting. There was a true smile on Findaráto’s face, and streaks of red clay all over his shimmering robes—even one on his nose. For a few precious moments he looked less unearthly and much younger than he had ever seen him. There was something about the joy and unexpected mess in this room that made it feel possible to ask for almost anything. The long fingers were for once almost without rings; only the silver band had not been discarded. Nauglamír alone adorned his neck, twining there as if grown to support it. Findaráto thanked him for his gift and showed him little silver ships with wings delicate as a moth’s wing he had made, a traditional Telerin feat never accomplished by him in real silver, and a crude brown cup given to him by Bëor—long shattered, but now whole once more, and veined with silver. There was tenderness in his voice when he held the cup so the light caught every break, saying it would so be in Arda Unmarred. It was a myth Tyelperinquar believed no more than unlikely tales of revenge at Dagor Dagorath, but there was such a hope in him that he did not wish to speak against it.

And speak of it Findaráto did, for a long time; of _amdir_ and _estel_ , defined so differently from how he knew them but no less convincing for it, and of his great hope, a vision in which even his poor brothers were not lost forever, in which even the brief atani did not dwindle into nothingness, painting a world in which nothing ever remained truly unredeemed. Where his trust stemmed from he could not say; but it was obvious Findaráto believed in a coming better world, and was willing to find a hidden reason for every evil in the one that still was. Tyelperinquar found himself envious of trust so wholly given despite everything the world had showed them both. He knew him no naïf; not after the Ice, he couldn’t be. But was it not so that sometimes one believed the unlikely merely because extreme pain was impossible to bear otherwise? He tried not to link this thought to the fulfillment of the Oath they still chased, which he knew could not be denied even without hope, however one defined it. Eventually he was led to a low stool with a wheel, where a lump of red clay sat. “I thought,” Findaráto said. “we might start by making a jug to drink from; a vessel for the wine we might share, a promise for many more evenings in congenial companionship.”

He felt himself smile in response as he sat down in the low chair, joy already leaping up his veins like some strange liquid. Findaráto came to stand behind him.

Soon slender hands came to rest upon on his own as the wheel spun, pressing down in the middle. “Now, if you want to shape your vessel you need to know” and Findaráto’s breath ghosted his ear, “how and when it is appropriate to apply pressure,” the warmth of those hands seemed to rush up his arm “and when to let go.” He withdrew at once and left him cold. Tyelperinquar’s fingers remained on the vase in a daze, going lopsided.

There was wine on Findaráto’s breath, and Tyelperinquar felt as though he had drunk from it. He trembled with it, unable to stop himself.

“Little cousin, what is the meaning of this?” There was laughter in Findaráto’s voice as hands ghosted his cheek; he could feel red clay leaving its dry marks, but could not seem to find words to match them. “Are you such an ascetic now that you would make only unusable drinking vessels? Perhaps the long North-watch has banked even the fire of Fëanáro’s line... So that is why your father gave me his good Thargelion wine when your host arrived! And here I thought I would share some with you, tonight. Too bad.” He felt a hand tangle into his braid to give it a playful tug as he walked away.

Tyelperinquar’s hand clenched involuntarily, and crushed the crooked jug.

-

A song like a lark rising over the low hills rose and was caught between the strings of a harp from the other room. He felt his heart catching with it.

-

Late at night, red-brown clay crumbled out of his hair when he drew the comb through it. He gathered all of it in a little jar with care, and mixed with egg and vinegar until they formed a face well-loved.

He hid the scrap of love well-hidden between his sketches, soon stained dark with sweet Thargelion.

* * *

When he woke again it was way past noon and with a headache, feeling for all the world as if he had drunk all the wine he had smelled on his cousin’s breath, and then gone to plunder the rest of the city’s reserves. His breath hitched and stomach clenched as he realised at last that what had drawn him to the King of this realm was not a craftsman’s vain wish to possess some of golden hair to admire, or even power.

The memory of a bare hand with just one silver band dividing a slender finger set sparks of guilt ablaze within him, burning away every last shred of joy.

Tyelperinquar tossed and turned until he at last left for the forge, feverishly leafing through the Book of Opening until he found what he was looking for, and began to hum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fellas is it gay to tenderly collect the dried clay your messy half cousin once removed left in your hair to draw a series of erotic miniatures of him in tempera while drinking yourself silly on your rich uncle's wine?


	9. Chapter 9

Orodreth reclined in his chair of woven reed before the fire, his back turned towards him. “Ah, there you are now. Your uncle once told me I am most like my father.” He took a sip of his mulled wine. “Though given that I did not inherit his foresight, and he made his dislike of him clear enough on other occasions, that might actually be an insult. Even so I would have you know I approve of your courting Finduilas, Curufinwion.”

  
Tyelperinquar froze in the middle of wiping the remaining soot off his hands and swallowed his surprise, realising several things at once. Chief of these was that his father had _radically_ misinterpreted his recent interest in working with silver. Secondly, that the muffled gasp and the sound of someone dropping a hammer near the door that had disrupted his latest concentrated effort to cast pure Song into a silver ring had likely been his father, also, and not a scandalised gentleman of Vanyarin sensibilities set to spy on him on behalf of the guild after all.

Thirdly, that Orodreth was convinced he was courting Finduilas. Did Finduilas think he was courting Finduilas? That seemed rather important all of sudden.

“My thanks.” He replied, perhaps more curtly than he had intended; hopefully Orodreth would interpret the crack in his voice as nervosity appropriate to such a momentous occasion.

The chair was turned around, and judging by his expression that was exactly what he had been thinking. “My wife was at first not wholly approving,” Orodreth said with a slight frown, though his tone remained indulgent. “which is not wholly surprising, given who her kinsmen are. But I find I cannot blame you for things you were too young to partake in, and though the same cannot be said for your father, he has been… a great help in organising necessary agrarian reforms my brother long held but little interest in. Perhaps the time has come to put old grief to bed, before new ones divide us.”

Tyelperinquar blinked in surprise, trying to control his expression as he gathered his wits. While there was no doubt in his mind that his father had been more than competent in his rule agriculture had never been one of his areas of interest, nor something even practiced to any significant degree. Nor were Nargothrond's low moors and hills at all similar to the changeable lands they had learned to love so well; his father must have made a study of their new environment. Suddenly all the times Curufinwë had come up to them in the courtyard to peer with approval at maps they had made came to mind; he realised with some chagrin that what he had taken for affection likely had a far more practical purpose instead. Indeed, it seemed he was even less aware of his family’s recent activities than he had thought. Though he was at least less willing to make assumptions about them. 

He fled the scene as soon as Orodreth was through with him. He thought he heard self-satisfied chuckling at his hasty retreat, no doubt mistaking it for an endearing shyness. But when he set out to find Finduilas he found she was nowhere to be found, neither within the city or outside it, and his father proved equally elusive.

Eventually he returned to his corner of the forge, and set to hammering the silver in loud staccato to drown out the frantic beating of his heart.

The basalt cave echoed with it until he fell asleep over his anvil.

* * *

Findaráto wore no crown today, only a little velvet cap the colour of the spring sea set with many pearls, his hair pinned into complicated coiling braids like roiling waves beneath it. “A gift from Círdan,” he said when he saw him looking. “It would be remiss of me never to wear it, especially not when an impudent seagull flies so far inland.” The puzzling remark was soon forgotten as he moved to hoover over his shoulder, looking down at the still shapeless lump of silver he had been hammering at. Tyelperinquar swallowed drily, feeling caught.

“This is no mere clay, I don’t think.” His voice was low and melodious now, much like that time when he had caught his wrist, and slid those slightly calloused fingertips ever so slowly up over the tender skin of his palm. “I hear you have been forging silver rings, Tyelperinquar.” The tone was almost accusing; the scent of pinecones pricked his nose.  
  
Suddenly he turned and drew a comb of ruel-bone from his shining hair so it spilled down like a wild river of light. His expression regained something of its former mischief. But soon he stood before him again, very serious, and his fingers pressed smooth and firm around his own. “It would be remiss of me not to grant a betrothal gift. I would give thee,” he said, his voice dropping further, his face unexpectedly so very near his own he could feel Findaráto’s warm breath move the feathery strands that had come loose from his smith’s braid, “three of my hairs, but I think thirty would serve thee better.”

And with that he wrapped a coil of his golden hair around Tyelperinquar’s pointer finger thrice, holding his gaze as he slid a jeweled knife straight through, holding the hair tightly wound about him. The ring of lambent gold was aglow with scorching warmth while he held it in place, as if it was still a living part of Laurelin in truth, and Tyelperinquar felt himself nearly drowning in the blazing green of those eyes as his mind emptied of thought beneath such close regard. All he could think of now was how he could count each individual golden eyelash framing concentric green and black like twin coronae with just the slightest hint of ice crystals caught in their web, moving in a lazy blink like the beating of a butterfly’s wing warming slowly beneath noonday Sun; the graceful arch of the eyebrow above it, the faint sheen of perspiration forming on fair skin in the heat of the forge.

Something like lightning was travelling swiftly over his skin, breath all but forgotten, and he did not think to let go until Findaráto smiled ruefully and pulled back with a feather-light caress that shivered up his arms to spread through his entire body. He felt his face heat up at his inappropriate reaction, and redden only further with awareness of a blush, but could not stop it any more than he could stop his mind from straying. Findaráto must not suspect-- he cast his eyes down.

But Findaráto was already retreating, not so near now, his voice still low and melodious. “I would be glad to hear who your fortunate beloved might be.” If there was a hint of mocking in his tone it was impossible to say. “Any books you might need for this new endeavor, on Telerin silversmithing techniques or otherwise—I would be glad to lend them to you, even if there is little you can learn from my own hands.”  
  
“I-“ words seemed to come very slowly to him when he most needed them of late, though there was little he could think to say. The shame of desiring one already promised to another, of soon having to hurt one who had only ever been kind to him with refusal, the misunderstandings he had somehow allowed to accumulate over months and months-- “I would like that.” If it came out sounding more than a little strangled the other was gracious enough not to acknowledge it.  
  
“Good!” said Findaráto brightly, his voice going up, one glittering hand already on the doorframe. “Now I must leave you, my most gifted smith; the council is waiting to discuss yet another urgent issue involving the provenance of certain sheep. I wish you much happiness.” And with that he was gone.

Tyelperinquar long stood staring at the coil of gold still wrapped around his fingers, slowly coming loose, just standing and standing there like one of the many fine sculptures that lined the city.

* * *

  
The impudent seagull the King spoke of turned out not to be of the feathered kind after all. Strange tidings arrived while Tylperinquar hid deep within the depths of the forge, or rather a strange person; Gwindor son of Guilin, recently of hidden Gondolin but lately oath-bound for the other side of the Sea. Though silent on any question pertaining the city itself he was more than willing to divulge the reason for his abandoned quest, turning to the King as he spoke; as he laid himself down on the banks of the Sirion on his way to Vinyamar, he said, he had seen visions of shipwrecks, and taken this for a sign from Ulmo.

The lull in the conversation stretched rather awkwardly as the King kept his silence. Eventually Orodreth spoke up in his stead. “Is it then true that you defy Turukáno’s orders, and would break an oath full-sworn?”

Gwindor’s pale blue eye flitted from one face to the other, but evidently did not find what he sought in any of them; he proceeded to stare at his feet instead, a disconsolate look on his face. “It is true.” he admitted. 

Findaráto regarded him thoughtfully, his face inscrutable.

Several council-members started shifting uneasily; a bell chimed cheerfully in the distant kitchens. Suddenly Tyelkormo rose from his seat, and rushed to the stranger’s defense. “Well then. A fine feat, boy! No help will come to us from across the Sea, and if that Manwë-cozened fool thinks the Powers will make an exception for him merely because he was so ill- equipped to found a city Ulmo was moved to take him by the hand when his Lord wasn’t looking he is sorely mistaken! All waves bend to the wind in the end. And the wind has no mercy for those who sail West in ships of Noldorin make, no matter how pious the King who presumes to send for aid!”

Curufinwë slowly stood to support him. “Is he a true King who would have his subjects swear themselves to needless death for his sake, not to ride to battle but to beg for mercy from the merciless on his behalf? He remains hidden safely behind high walls as others die beneath the Enemy’s feet; all know the way is closed. Show mercy on this ill-fated messenger if you would call yourself a King, Felagund.”

Some of the lords bristled, but Tyelperinquar saw hope take shape on Guilin’s face. He looked for all the world as if he was struggling to decide whether wanted to embrace his son or Tyelkormo.

At last the King spoke, his voice quiet but firm. “Peace, kinsmen. Justice should not be given more weight than mercy, though Turukáno is neither a fainthearted tyrant nor a fool, and I never knew you to come to the defense of oath-breakers.” He said a displeased look his cousins. “But in times of great sorrow even those considered wise are prone to rash decisions; sometimes to have a fool’s hope is to play the part of the fool in truth. Am I right in thinking you and your companions were sent to seek the Sea after the death of the High King?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And that no dream came to you save those of your own making?”  
  
“Yes. No!” Gwindor exclaimed, reddening and looking away. The uncomfortable silence made its swift return. But he soon found his voice anew, and spoke with more confidence, at last raising his eyes to meet Findaráto's. “Yes. But not every soldier is given fair warning; the Aratar seem to prefer High Princes. Many are the thralls in Angband reduced to fearful shadows, and no eagle spreads its wings for their sake. I would gladly ride to death for my King if there was merit in my demise. But the way is hidden, and we were all warned; my King too was given naught but dreamless sleep. Are these not the lands of the free? I would give my loyalty to you instead, and swear no hollow oath, for I see now why the Aftercomers named you Nóm.”

“I would ask no Oath of you,” said Findaráto, “for all who seek safety are welcome to my halls, so long as they do no harm. But I would have you speak the truth, insofar you are able.”  
  
Gwindor nodded, shamefaced. His gaze returned to his feet.

“Go now to your father." Findaráto smiled, "I am sure you have been sorely missed.”  
  


“Thank you, my King.”

“Now! As for the fishing rights to the eastern shore of the Ginglith… “

-

Finduilas awaited them at the doors when the council-chamber was thrown open, and he opened his mouth to speak; but she ran straight past Tyelperinquar to launch herself at Gwindor with a shout. Soon there were tears on many faces, the lord Guilin's not least among them. Gwindor and Finduilas had apparently been childhood sweethearts, and he had not known about his brother’s death in the Sudden Flame until this very moment. 

Tyelperinquar lingered for a few moments, but found did not know how to offer comfort, not now. Nor did he wish to intrude with what could only add to Finduilas' sorrow. He resolved to speak with his father only after he had explained himself to her; he owed her at least that much. There as no reason to invite more of his involvement.

* * *

He slipped out of the secret door and roamed the low moors all day, moving to hidden places where sweet marsh violets and star sedge spread in wild abundance, the crested wave of the ruel-bone comb pressed over his heart, trying not to want and succeeding only in fervently wishing not to until his chest ached as though filled once more with thick black smoke. 

A solitary lark rose to meet the sinking sun with harried notes as he descended again into the earth, the memory of a harp mingling with the moment until all distinction between sensation and recollection was utterly lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'a bent and fearful shadow' is in fact jirt's description of post-thralldom Gwindor. ;)
> 
> Imagine my surprise when I found out that Turgon started sending out doomed sailors as early as 455, possibly in response to the breaking of the Siege and subsequent Sudden Flame!
> 
> http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/First_Age_455
> 
> I couldn't pass up; hence poor Gwindor, who didn't really need another reason to be a little unstable during the Nirnaeth to start with.


End file.
